The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi (56 page)

Still, in and of itself, the filthy mulch on the floors was not troublesome enough to cause the princess to risk offending her father’s wife by refusing the Sultana’s invitations. What kept her away was the enforced intimacy of the place. Ever since she moved her household from the harem in the Old Palace to Topkapi, the Sultana had taken to using the enforced closeness of the
hamam
as a bully pulpit from which to preach to her stepdaughter sermons on filial duty. Saida must, simply must, give up the quarters in the Old Palace that she inherited from her grandmother and move closer to her father, who needed her, and to her brothers and sisters, who cried for her. It was willful of the princess to bury herself in the Old Palace with a bunch of discarded concubines who spent their days sitting and waiting for a visit from a sultan who never came.

“Besides,” the lecture went on, “you are bound to move to your own palace when you marry. Might as well start packing.”

Thus far, the princess had managed to withstand the pressure of these cozy chats, clinging to the forlorn hope that Allah would spare her that day. But she felt her will slowly being worn down, nowhere faster than in the Sultana’s
hamam.

Apparently, someone had forewarned the masseuse of the princess’s peculiar sensitivities, so today she was spared another of the
hamam’s
pitfalls, the frightening sensation of her arms being torn from their sockets and her legs from her torso. Administered for only half the time and with only half the force of a normal massage, the treatment turned out to be quite bearable and Saida sank into a peaceful doze, only to be alerted by the sound of a familiar voice that rose above the hubbub of the room.

“Princess! Princess! Where is the princess? Is she not come?”

This outcry was followed by an inaudible reply. Then again came the familiar voice: “Bring her to me at once!”

And the princess was instantly wrapped up and delivered like a parcel to the private cubicle presided over by a
gedicli
,
who was a prodigy in the perilous art of depilation. Because both custom and religion decreed that every inch of a woman’s skin below the neck be entirely free of hair, and because the paste of
rusma
and lime spread over the skin to loosen the hair follicles contained enough arsenic to burn through the flesh to the bone, the elimination of stray hairs was a dangerous procedure. If the paste was left on too long, it would corrode the flesh; not long enough and there would be a scattering of errant hairs left to be extracted by plucking — most painful.

Splayed out on the table, her lower body as smooth and hairless as a plucked chicken, the Sultana somehow managed to convey with a single, broad gesture the resignation of a martyr as she murmured, “What we women sacrifice for the men we love . . .”

Just then, the ever-vigilant Amazon spied a single hair buried in the folds of Hürrem’s labia, an insult to God, which she avenged with great vigor.

“Ouch!” the lady gasped. Quickly recovered, she turned to the princess with an expression that said,
You see what I mean by sacrifice?
Then she added, with a pitying glance at the un-beautified, virginal body that Saida was hiding under her towel, “It is always worth it, as you will soon discover. Come closer. Let me take a look at you.”

The girl’s chin was firmly cupped by a pair of strong hands. “Such white teeth! You smile so seldom that we do not often have the chance to see them. Sit here beside me, on that stool.”

Saida sat obediently.

“I am so pleased to have you join me today for my day of beauty. I always invite you as a courtesy, but I never expect you to come. After all, it isn’t as if you have to make yourself beautiful for a lover or a husband returning from the wars.”

At the mention of the word “lover” the girl suddenly turned bright red, but she was able to cloak the alteration in her complexion by lowering her head modestly and remaining silent.

“The truth is that an unmarried girl like you has only a father to get beautiful for, and your father would find you beautiful even if you had wattles on your neck or hairs sprouting out of your chin.”

This suggestion was followed by a hearty laugh. Still, the girl lifted her fingers to rub at her chin just in case there might be a kernel of truth in the jest. This lapse might have been noticed by someone less concerned with her own purposes than the Sultana. But Hürrem tended to unleash a veritable cascade of words once she got started on one of her frequent flights of oratory, and on she went, quite unmindful of the girl’s discomfort.

Over the time Saida had spent in this woman’s company since her grandmother’s death, she had evolved a response to the seemingly benign, but somehow not quite kind, remarks that often issued from her stepmother’s mouth: never a reply. Only downcast eyes, a shy smile, and silence. And with Hürrem, silence was always an option, she being a non-stop talker who simply talked right through it.

“For me the news of your father’s imminent return is an answer to my prayers,” the Sultana went on. “Four days, I am told. Four days and I will see my beloved and esteemed Sultan after all these months of separation. To hear his voice. To feel his touch . . .” Then, patting her hairless belly, “Of course I must have a full day of beauty to prepare.” A brief, satisfied glance at her nether regions. Then, she reached for Saida’s hand. “I understand that to you, my fortune-favored Sultan is simply a father. But to me he is the world. When you are married, you will understand.”

Again, Saida smiled and said nothing. And, having made her point, the Sultana moved on to another subject.

“When I got your note this morning, I asked myself why, after so many absent days, is the princess coming to be with me on this day of beauty of all days? Could it be that she is finally getting ready to take her place in the world as a woman? Is she, at last, ready to leave her childhood behind? Could this be a first step toward womanhood? The thought makes me very happy” — a slight squeeze of the hand — “and it is sure to please your father.” Then, with a signal to the Amazon to help her down from the high table, “Now let us go and be cleaned and perfumed.”

Taking the girl’s hand as a friend might, or a sister, she led the princess into the heart of the
hamam
, the tepidarium, where their bodies would be soaped, scraped, and sluiced with water, an especially lengthy process since the water had to be tipped from a series of sinks that lined one wall of the room and carried, basin by basin, to be poured over the prone bodies of the women on the marble couches. It certainly would not have challenged the ability of the royal plumbers to have bathtubs installed in which to perform this procedure, but everyone knew that bathtubs were where jinns
and evil spirits liked to hide out. And so the two women endured the lengthy showering patiently, thus guaranteeing their safe departure from the rinsing room un-hexed and un-cursed.

Next came a gracious gift from the Sultana to her stepdaughter: the offer of a rose-petal rub, fresh rose petals being the luxury of the few who could afford them. Now, rubbed to a fragrant rosy pink, the Sultana and her stepdaughter entered arm in arm into the finishing room where the hairdressers and the nail dyers worked their magic.

Here, Saida lent herself happily to the art of the hairdresser who shampooed her hair with fresh eggs, smoothed it with butter, and twisted it around rags into a mop of shining curls. Of the cosmetics, she did not avail herself. Her grandmother had strictly forbidden her to use skin-whitening paste or kohl or henna. Although the Valide herself had used henna to cover her grey hair and color her nails and routinely rimmed her eyes with black kohl, these things, she insisted, were tools for old women who wanted to look young, not for girls in the bloom of youth. And, out of respect, the princess continued to abide by her grandmother’s dictum.

But the Sultana was under no such interdict — nothing but the full menu of cosmetics for her. First, her face was covered with a masque of almond and egg yolks, then bleached with a jasmine and almond paste. Then, a masque of henna for the hair and nails and a thick line in India ink to draw her eyebrows together. Last, beaten egg whites to banish the lines at the outside corners of her eyes. And this was only the basic beauty treatment. Still to come, to be applied at the last possible minute before coming face to face with the Sultan, a powder of ground-up pearls and lapis would be applied to the eyelids, a black beauty patch placed high on the cheek, and the invaluable kohl stick would turn the eyes into pools of moonlight. Hürrem’s eyes were transformed into pools of moonlight just thinking of it. And, at her side, glancing into the rotunda mirror at her own shiny curls, Saida decided that, on balance and compared with other afternoons she had spent in the Sultana’s
hamam
, this one had come to a good end.

It was in this spirit that she turned to Hürrem to thank her and bid her goodbye.

“You will not stay to sup with me?” The mouth took on a tight edge. “I have ordered a delicious pilaf because I know it to be your favorite dish.”

Saida’s apologies were profuse. “If only I could.” She sighed. “But, sadly, I have ordered my house steward to have my horses at the palace gates in good time to get me home before evening prayers. He is waiting for me as we speak.”

But Hürrem was not one to be thwarted by a mere steward. “Let him wait,” she ordered. Then, in a more conciliatory tone: “I fear that you don’t eat enough.” She leaned over to pinch Saida’s thigh. “Skin and bones.” Then, in an intimate whisper: “Men don’t like skinny women. If you were living here with us, we would put some meat on those bones.”

It took only a breath to fill the silence that followed with more words. “Now about this steward who is waiting at the gate, I feel it is my duty to remind you, since your grandmother, may she rest in heaven, is no longer with us, that we are not meant to serve the convenience of slaves. It is they who serve at our pleasure.”

“Just what my grandmother used to say when she felt I was being indulgent with Narcissus,” Saida concurred.

“Wise woman.” The Sultana nodded her approval.

“She was especially concerned that I be well trained in household management,” the girl went on. “One of the maxims she handed down to me is that on any day that you entrust a slave with a sum of money to spend on your behalf, you must insist that a complete accounting be rendered before the setting of the sun. ‘Delay is fatal,’ she used to say. ‘It is in the nature of coins to disappear in the dark.’”

This time, it was the Sultana who remained silent and the princess who filled the silence that followed.

“Earlier today,” she continued, “I sent my steward to the bazaar with a good sum of money to make some purchases, while I was attending the
hamam
. At that time, remembering my grandmother’s wise words, I ordered him to come and fetch me home in good time so that he could make an accounting of his expenditures and return the unspent coins before supper time.”

“Of course.” A veteran of the battle of wills, Hürrem easily recognized when she had irretrievably lost a point. She also knew how to turn defeat to her advantage.

“Very well, I will let you off tonight,” she conceded. “But I must insist that you rejoin me tomorrow morning in my kitchens. I have a surprise for you. Here is a clue. What day is tomorrow?”

“Friday,” Saida answered readily, into the game in spite of herself.

“And what happens on Fridays?”

Fridays were the days that the Sultan rode through the streets of Istanbul to say his evening prayers at the mosque in the sight of all. But tomorrow the Sultan would still be marching toward the capital. Saida racked her brain but could not think of another important Friday event.

“I will tell you.” The Sultana had regained her good temper and was enjoying the game. “Friday is the day that the camels come down from Cyprus bearing the ice for the sherbet. I am going to prepare the secret syrup that I use to make sherbets for my Sultan. You know how he dotes on my sherbets.”

And, indeed, the princess had heard praise for the lady’s ices from her father’s lips on more than one occasion.

“For the first time” — Hürrem leaned forward confidentially — “I intend to share that secret with another woman. You!”

Herself an inveterate pursuer of secrets, the Sultana simply could not imagine anyone whose head would not be turned by being one of only two women in the world to know a secret way to bring light to a sultan’s eye.

As she watched the princess’s fleet, slim figure make off to find her steward, the lady could not help but congratulate herself on finally having found a tidbit to brighten the dull, listless eyes of the pale princess. And as Saida bounced along through the streets of the capital to her safe haven in the Old Palace, her eyes were indeed sparkling. And her cheeks flushed. But her head was not filled with thoughts of sherbet recipes. What she was seeing in her mind’s eye was a cloaked figure jumping down from a rock ledge in response to a signal — two long, two short — from an approaching caique. Strong legs, broad shoulders, a mass of gold curls, a pair of blue eyes, and, after months of longing for it and dreaming of it, the embrace of the only man she would ever love.