The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi (59 page)

From somewhere deep inside, Saida managed to control the waves of nausea that flooded over her. “What I know is that Danilo del Medigo is quite incapable of the crimes that the Grand Vizier has accused him of,” she stated with all the authority she could muster.

“Based on what? A childhood recollection.”

“He did save my father’s life in the Zagros Mountains,” she blurted out.

“How do you know that?”

Too late Saida realized that she had trapped herself. Her own body betrayed her with a deep flush. She lowered her head, tried to think. But Hürrem was a practiced hunter. Once she caught the scent, she was ruthless in pursuit.

“If you have not seen this traitor since you were children, how do you know what happened in Persia? And how could you be so sure that he has not changed in all the years?” She hesitated as a new thought crossed her mind. “Unless you have seen him since you left the Princes School. Of course. You have seen him and he has seen you. Foolish girl. Wicked girl. Where? When did this meeting happen?”

“At
Bayram
. We met a few times.”

Even Hürrem was stunned by the girl’s admission. That this meek little mouse had been meeting a man secretly for years was unthinkable. Where was the Valide all this time? Hürrem’s mind, wide open to the most outrageous rumors of duplicity and deceit, could barely grasp the sheer audacity of what she was hearing. But with some effort she managed to make the leap and began to deal with the implications of Saida’s confession.

“Has he seen you unveiled?”

The girl’s silence was as good as an admission.

“He has seen you unveiled. You, the Sultan’s daughter, who claim to love your father better than your own life.”

“I do love him,” the girl protested.

“This Jewish page has put a stain on the Sultan’s honor, a stain that can be erased only by death,” the Sultana pronounced.

“But what if the Grand Vizier is lying? What if this report is a ploy of Ibrahim Pasha’s? What if Danilo de Medigo is innocent?”

“Then we will have eliminated one unimportant Jew,” the Sultana snapped. “But if this story is true we will have saved the empire. No question, he must die! And he must die before he makes any more moves against the Sultan.”

Hürrem rose to her feet and headed for the open doorway. “Fortunately, the Padishah has given me the means to accomplish my duty.” She thrust the door curtain aside and shouted down the corridor, “Call for my Men in Black!” Then, turning back to the princess, “For you I have only one question, my princess. Take care how you answer it. Your very life may be in the balance here.” She paused to let this sink in, then asked, “Do you still have your virginity?”

“Yes, madam.” Seeing a hint of disbelief on the woman’s face, Saida added, “I swear it on my grandmother’s grave.” There was no mistaking the sincerity of her oath.

“Then your life will be spared. But get out of my sight before I have a chance to regret my generosity.”

As the shivering princess backed out of the room, she heard the echo of an angry voice shouting, “Where are those men? I need them now!”

Out of earshot, Saida called out to the steward awaiting her. “Narcissus, come quick!”

Ten minutes later she was back at the Sultana’s doorway, suppliant, pleading.

But once aroused, the Sultana was not easily appeased. “What brings you back here?” she barked. “Did I not send you home? Have you now become disobedient as well as disloyal?”

“I could not leave without expressing to you my regret . . . my shame . . . my folly.” The girl was literally groveling. “How could I have been so blind as not to see that this Jew was only using me to reach my father? Maybe to steal state secrets and pass them on for money to the Venetians. Or was he in league with the Persians, do you think?”

“They have spies everywhere,” the Sultana informed her in a tone not quite as steely as before.

Encouraged, the princess raised her head to reveal the ravages of her tear-stained face. “I am so ashamed. Please don’t tell my father. Please, I beg you.”

After a long moment of deliberation, the Sultana replied, “I will keep this from him, not for your sake but for his. If he were to learn of this betrayal, it would break his heart. He will never know of this shame. No one will. Dead bodies wash up on the shores of the Bosphorus every night. What is one more or less? Now it is time for you to go.”

“Not yet. Please.” The princess reached up to grasp the woman’s clenched fist. “I know I have no right to ask. You have already saved me from making a grave error. But I need your comfort. Without my grandmother to watch over me, I am so confused.”

As the girl raised her hand to wipe a tear from her cheek, she caught a glimpse of softening around the Sultana’s hard-set lips.

“My grandmother always told me that if I was in trouble you would come to my aid,” she went on. “What can I do to make amends?” Now she was on her knees, the perfect penitent. “I would gladly marry the admiral tomorrow.”

“Too late. What is done is done and cannot be undone. Your father has already canceled the wedding plans. He would not be pleased with further alterations.” Once again the woman’s lips were set in a thin hard line.

“Perhaps the two of us could audience him together on the day of his arrival.” The girl spoke softly, timidly. Raising her head, she caught a glimmer of interest in the beady black eyes. “You are the one he trusts. He places all his faith in your wisdom. If you spoke on my behalf he would not be angry.” She lowered her head and added in an almost inaudible tone, “I fear my father’s wrath.”

This time her tears and pleas appeared to have reached the Sultana’s heart. In a regal gesture she placed her hand on the girl’s forehead like a benediction.

“Your humbleness and modesty have touched me. I will help you. We two will visit the Sultan together. Do not worry, my child, your father will not be angry and the blackguard Jew will never bother you again. My men will see to that. They never fail.”

As she reached out to embrace the object of her beneficence, she failed to notice that the girl had turned ashen and was trembling.

“Now run along and dream sweet dreams of a beautiful life to come.”

But the girl did not move. Graciously the older woman reached out to help her to her feet and, with the slightest of pressure, turned the girl toward the door. “Be off with you now.”

Almost like a sleepwalker, the princess headed for the doorway, turned back suddenly, and once more fell to her knees. “I beg of you, madam, do not send me away. At least allow me to drink a cup of tea with you before I go. Just a sip as I used to do with my grandmother. She always said I brewed the best tea in the world. I miss her so much.”

Seconds went by in silence. Then the girl felt the pat of a hand on her cheek. “You poor child. Of course I will take tea with you.”

“Am I forgiven, then?” Saida’s eyes were wide with genuine surprise.

“Forgiven.”

“And may I spend the night close to you? I so need a mother now.”

“Very well.” The Sultana gave her assent with a nod.

“You are the soul of generosity, madam. I will send my slave at once to inform my household that I will not be returning this evening, and then with your permission I will prepare our tea.”

“Permission granted. Before we sleep we will drink a cup together in love and forgiveness.”

Saida threw herself into the Sultana’s open arms for a final embrace, then hurried off to give Narcissus his orders for the night and to prepare a pot of her grandmother’s favorite tea — double strength.

59

RENDEZVOUS

Walking off the practice field for his water break, Danilo allowed himself a rare moment of self-congratulation. Four perfect thrusts out of five. It was good to know that he hadn’t lost his skill with the
gerit
, and good to be back in the routine of the practice field. He was thinking that after the final thrusting drill, when the other pages had dispersed among the stews of the Galata docks, he would return to his cubicle in the School for Pages and plan how to approach his upcoming audience with the Padishah.

Tonight when he met with his princess he would have a chance to try out his words on her. Who better to consult on the correct phrases in which to address a sultan? She was, after all, his language tutor once.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sight of the round face of the princess’s slave, Narcissus, bobbing up and down behind the giant water cask at the side of the field. With a barely discernible nod, the eunuch motioned him toward the shady grove behind him, where he would be waiting as always to transmit the details of the time and place for that night’s rendezvous. Would they be treated again to a ride in the royal caique
with its brilliant white hull and gilded mountings? Not for the first time Danilo wondered how Narcissus managed to produce these elegant surprises.

In all their years of furtive meetings, the eunuch had always kept his distance. But today he grasped the page’s arm from behind and steered him with crude force toward the gates that separated the playing field from the Eunuch’s Path. Danilo could feel the strength of the slave’s massive body as it propeled him to the end of the field and out the gates.

“Why are you pushing me? Where are we going?” he inquired with some asperity.

No answer. Instead he was dragged along the Eunuch’s Path through a small opening in a thick hedge leading to a garden in the Second Court, where he was given the terse instruction, “Keep your head down. We must not be seen.”

“Why not?” Again, no response. “Where are you taking me?”

This time, he got a short answer. “To a place where you will be safe.” The slave took a moment to look from side to side, and then nodded with satisfaction. “So far we have not been followed.”

The garden they came into was so serene, the birdsong so sweet, and the scent of the oleander bushes so calming — so out of keeping with the frantic manner of his guide — that Danilo concluded this must be another one of Princess Saida’s pranks. Why not play the game, he asked himself, at least until he got to where he was being led, which seemed to be in the direction of the stables. So he hustled along silently behind his guide through the huge, carved wooden doors of the stable and obeyed a whispered instruction to get down on his knees and crawl past the quarters of the Master of the Horse toward a long row of stalls, most of them empty, awaiting the imminent return of the Sultan’s household steeds from Baghdad. Then, halfway down the aisle, the eunuch turned and grabbed him by the shoulders so abruptly that he stumbled and fell flat on his back on the straw-covered floor of a stall, where he found himself staring up at the fine, familiar cock and balls of his horse, Bucephalus.

Now the eunuch spoke, quickly and breathlessly. “Your life is in peril. Men are out searching for you all over the city with orders to kill you.”

“Is this some kind of a joke?”

The slave cut him off. “Be quiet. There is very little time. I must go and make the payment for your passage to safety. But my orders are not to leave you alone until you give your word — on your father’s life — that you will not leave this place until either I or the princess comes for you.”

In genuine bewilderment, Danilo asked, “Where would I go?”

To Narcissus, the question was beneath notice. “There may already be men stationed at your dormitory and patroling the Doctor’s House. But here, you are safe. The Sultana’s guards are dolts. They cannot imagine that you might be hiding in the stable, right under their noses. And if by chance anyone does come looking for you, you can bury yourself in the straw. I must go. Do you swear?”

What did he have to lose? “I swear,” Danilo replied.

“On your father’s life?”

“On my father’s life. But I have a question. Where is the princess?”

“She is drinking tea with the Sultana,” the slave answered, po-faced, and then added, with the merest suggestion of a smile, “The Sultana has become very fond of the special tea the princess brews, and the princess always keeps a stock of the doctor’s calming tea on hand should the need arise.”

For the first time in the encounter, Danilo wondered if the slave’s bizarre behavior was indeed more than a prank.

“What do you think, Bucephalus?” he inquired of his horse after Narcissus had left. “Is this one of Saida’s tricks or are there really men coming to kill me?”

The horse’s answering neigh gave Danilo the comfort he was seeking, and he settled down in the straw beside his faithful steed to await the arrival of his princess.

Before long she dashed into the stall breathless and disheveled.

“Thank God you are here.” She reached out to touch him as if to reassure herself. “I was afraid you might have been carried off somewhere and I would never see you again.”

“Are you telling me that Narcissus’s story of men out to kill me is true?”

“Of course it is. Why would he lie?”

“I thought it was one of your pranks.”

“Were it so. Hürrem’s Men in Black are already out there looking for you. I saw them patroling your father’s house.”

“But why? Tell me.”