The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi (38 page)

Much credit for my new writing skill is due to our treasure, Princess Saida, who has worked tirelessly to keep me at my reading and writing lessons and has persevered when my own will to continue flagged. Poor Saida. First, she loses her mother; then she loses the grandmother who took the mother’s place, a role that I have tried to play with incomplete success. Of course, she is always ready with expressions of gratitude for my efforts, but her heart remains cold. Perhaps I have leaned too heavily on her family obligations to the Ottoman dynasty. Perhaps I could have made a greater effort to emphasize the pleasures of womanhood — especially for a princess.

So I have arranged an outing — just the two princesses and myself — to visit palaces that are or might be for sale along the Bosphorus waterway. When I mentioned this to Vice Admiral Lofti — with whom I met yesterday to discuss his divorce — he came to my aid with an offer of one of his small crafts (including a crew) to ferry us along the Bosphorus in the summer breeze. When I spoke of this to little Princess Mihrimah, she flushed with excitement, even though she fully understands that none of these palaces can be hers until after her sister is married and established. But Princess Saida remained unmoved.

There is such a difference between the two princesses. Mihrimah dotes on every detail of her future life; Saida remains adrift in the past. She reads. She rides her horse. She prays. She attends to my needs faithfully by day, and at night I hear that she weeps. So different from her younger sister, who at the age of ten is already half a woman. Count on it. When the time comes for our daughter Mihrimah to marry, she will welcome it joyfully without the need of any encouragement from us. Even now she plays at selecting the names of her children and the number of her servants and slaves.

I do not expect Princess Saida to take on the details of the wedding feast such as the public ceremony, the games at the hippodrome, the bands of musicians who will play for the people dancing in the streets. Those are the proper concerns of the mother of the bride-to-be, not the bride herself. However, I admit I would like to see an occasional flash of interest, or nod of approval, or some sign of anticipation. It is quite clear to me that if we do not take charge, this lovely daughter of ours will go to her grave a spinster and never know the pleasure of marriage to a fine
damat
or the joy and pride of mothering royal children. This thought has been on my mind, but I have been unwilling to express it while dictating to the very person concerned, for fear of offending her delicate feelings.

There is something — and what that is, I have been unable to discover — that has made this girl, by nature so accommodating, stiffen into rigid opposition on the matter of her marriage. If she were simply one of the harem girls, I would have sworn she had a secret lover. But the princess lives the life of a Christian nun. And try as I may, I seem not able to bring a smile to her face at the prospect of her happy future and the life for which she is destined.

So be prepared, my love! You may have to accompany a sad, pale wraith of a princess to her wedding ceremony. But I promise you, my adored and most revered husband, that together we will lead the sad princess to a happier state whether she is willing or not.

Signed and stamped in wax with the Regent’s seal

Beneath her signature, an encrypted message:

The hot flame of true love can melt the wax that seals the message, but cannot alter what is written there.

From: Danilo del Medigo at Ereğli

To: Judah del Medigo at Topkapi Palace

Date: July 26, 1534

Dear Papa:

I thought Konya would be a rest stop for me. Instead, not since my days in the School for Pages have I been so occupied, morning to night. I am now a clerk — a copyist, if you like — who has spent his days in Konya hunched over his desk carefully copying the poems of Rumi, for the discerning eyes of the Sultana in Istanbul (who cannot read).

Ever since he found me copying Rumi’s inscription, the Sultan assumes that I share his admiration — awe is a better word — for the Sufi mystic. So I have been chosen to make a selection of Rumi’s poems, translated in perfect accuracy and penmanship, to send directly to the Lady Hürrem via the Sultan’s courier. What does this portend? Think of it! Will I now spend this entire campaign as a clerk? On the other hand, I do write directly to the Lady Hürrem in Topkapi Palace. Although she herself cannot read my script, the Sultan assures me that her reader can and that the reader’s standards are high. Never could I have guessed that the product of my pen would fall into reach of such exacting hands.

What makes this all such a mix-up is that, having banished me to this tedious task (for which I am so ill-suited), the Sultan feels that he has honored me with a place in the Society of Poets. Result? My horse is getting restive for the lack of exercise, and I long for the pleasures of the pouch.

D.

36

KAYSERI

From: Danilo del Medigo at Kayseri

To: Judah del Medigo at Topkapi Palace

Date: August 2, 1534

Dear Papa:

In the secret book she wrote for my benefit, Mama reminded me that the hearts of the powerful are fickle and never to be depended upon. And I recall many mentions of the whimsical nature of her patroness, the Lady Isabella D’Este, flitting like a hummingbird from one caprice to another.

But I wager, Papa, that the great Gonzaga lady has met her capricious match in my master, the Sultan.

Since our stay in Konya, īskender the Great, the Heroic, the Cherished, has completely lost his allure. He is, alas, forgotten. Abandoned. These days we read only Rumi. And recite Rumi. And discuss Rumi. And copy Rumi for the edification of the Sultana Hürrem in far-off Istanbul, who, it seems, has a longing for his verses. Either that or she has developed an urgent need to be inspired by having his mystic visions read to her from copies made by . . . who else? Danilo del Medigo, formerly the Assistant Foreign Language Interpreter, now Danilo, the Clerk. Together with my little desk and my pens and my tablets and the library of manuscripts assembled to assist me in my scholarly struggles with bloody Arrian and bloody Plutarch, we have been stripped of all purpose. Alexander, no longer the Great, has been tossed onto the garbage heap like a worn-out cart horse. And the former Assistant Foreign Language Interpreter is employed as copier of texts — a clerk!

The sad joke is that after weeks of travel the Sultan’s army is now following in the actual footsteps of Alexander as he made his way from the Mediterranean to the very town from which I write this letter — the town of Kayseri. After he secured the Mediterranean ports, Alexander passed this way heading north to Gordium. Now our boots are treading in his steps as we too head north. And this at the very moment the Sultan has lost all interest in him. Bad timing.

Remember the Gordian knot, Papa? I first learned of it seated in your lap. And I had been planning to lead the Sultan up to the top of the Gordian acropolis, where I hear say you can see the ancient wooden-wheeled cart in which old Gordium traveled from Macedonia to capture Anatolia. Not only the cart but also the remains of the leather knot that held the yoke to the shaft, the famous Gordian knot.

As we pass through the countryside, I have seen similar rigs on the road knotted yoke-to-shaft with a leather thong. But the Gordian knot was, they say, a knot of such extraordinary complexity that no one from earliest days to the time of Alexander had been able to untie it. Because of this, the knot carried a prophecy that whoever succeeded in finding the hidden ends and unraveling them would become ruler of all Asia.

To Alexander, that must have made the challenge irresistible. To me, it seemed like a tale made to order for the Sultan. Never one to grab onto a moment of high drama if he could avoid it, Arrian simply tells us that Alexander reached in and pulled out the pin that held the thing together. After centuries? Really? But Curtius gave me a conclusion I recognized at once to be more to the Sultan’s taste.

According to Curtius’ version, Alexander began, as had hundreds of men before him, by studying the knot from every angle. Like them, he stood there for some minutes, baffled. There had to be a way. Suddenly, it came to him.

“Nobody said how it had to be untied,” he was heard to mutter by those close to him. And, with that, he drew out his sword and hacked open the knot with his blade to reveal the ends of it deep inside. Voila!

So confident was I that this tale would delight the Sultan, I even undertook to make my own translation of the event from Quintus Curtius’
History of Alexander
. Sad to say, by the time my translation was done, the Sultan had no time for my scholarly efforts or for the Gordian excursion. From the moment of our arrival in Kayseri, he was deep into horse dealing with the merchants of the town, a hard-headed bunch known in these parts for sharp business practices. Kayseri has passed through many hands under various names since its early days as a Hittite capital. Romans, Persians, Byzantines, Mongols, Crusaders, and the dreaded Tamerlane have all laid their heavy hands on Kayseri, leaving it, Papa, a mess of dye works, tanneries, and slaughterhouses, and ringed by herds of sheep and water buffalo raised for the sausage and pastirma industries. The town is one long smoked-meat banquet. Also, they use the hides of these animals to make the most amazing yellow Morocco leather slippers. And I confess that I gave in to the lure of fashion and indulged myself in a purchase of the same.

No question, trade is the lifeblood of this town and stories abound. A favorite is the tale — told with relish by the locals — of the man who stole a donkey, painted it brown, and then sold it back to its owner. And Ahmed Pasha has reported to me the newest variation of this tale in which the merchant now abducts his mother, paints her up, and sells her back to his father.

You can still hear versions of this story being told over teacups in the stalls of the Kayseri bazaar, just as various tales of īskender’s miraculous splitting of the Gordian knot are spun into the smoke of bubble pipes in Gordium. What does that tell you about the people who have handed down these tales over generations? What kind of people would find getting the best in a horse trade a more compelling subject to preserve for their heirs than the conquest of Asia? And what does it tell you about those — like ourselves — who choose to make their way to Aleppo by way of Kayseri rather than Gordium? We did have a choice of route. It is not by accident that we find ourselves stuck here bargaining for horses and being treated no better than if we were cattle thieves. But I console myself with knowing that there will be wonderful sights to see in Syria, and I will have a chance to sail to Babylon on the most famous river in the world — the Euphrates. And, who knows? Perhaps īskender will rise like Lazarus from the Mesopotamian ashes once we get to Iraq. At least I am seeing the world. For which opportunity I thank you, Papa.

Your grateful son,

D.

From: Sultana Hürrem at Topkapi Palace

To: Sultan Suleiman en route, received at Kayseri

Date: July 28, 1534