I turn in earnest now to Joseph Nasi, and I bother with him for three reasons. One, he was the epitome of what is achievable in our Empire by a Jew. Two, he was important to Esther. And three, he was the cause of Selim’s demise. No one agrees with me about the third reason, and I don’t care.
Like Esther, Nasi had been born and baptized in Lisbon during the Inquisition. He was raised by the aunt Esther had mentioned, the widow of a colossally successful spice dealer, and he was taken by her to Antwerp when Portugal’s edict of conversion had become an order of expulsion. Unlike Esther, Nasi was formally and indeed highly educated. And armed with even more languages than Esther had, Nasi helped his aunt establish a banking house that turned her financial force into their political power.
It did not take long for vying capitals—Antwerp, Ferarra, Venice, here—the Sublime Porte—to compete for the Nasi fortune. The question was, whose desire for the fortune was matched by its tolerance of Jews? It quickly came down to two. And the winner could have been Venice had the Nasis been more than a flamboyant exception to Inquisition rules. So important were the aunt’s fortune and Nasi’s contacts that they alone among “New Christians” were permitted to live in opulence on the Grand Canal even as they practiced their true faith. It took public, insistent betrayal by a jealous Nasi family member to put a halt to the arrangement. Dona Gracia and her nephew were given two months to move all their assets, businesses and belongings, out of the Republic.
Joseph Nasi then staked the Nasi fortune on Ottoman tolerance and Suleiman the Magnificent’s own good sense. The reward was great. The Sultan granted the Nasis immediate safe passage and permanent asylum. Six weeks later, Dona Gracia Nasi and her nephew were residing in magnificence on the banks of Galata, directly across the Golden Horn from Topkapi Palace.
Joseph Nasi’s greatest talent was knowing how to make the most of what he had and what he faced. It is a talent of Jews generally. Nasi’s enterprising spirit didn’t fix on a need, however; it attached itself to Selim’s weakness. Had Suleiman thought Nasi would get Selim to assign him the proceeds on all wine imported via the Bosporus, he would have changed the tax code. And if he’d known Nasi would subvert our hard-won peace with Venice by the most extreme means imaginable, he’d never have helped Nasi leave the Republic in the first place. When, in the fall of 1569, the worst fire known to Venice broke out in the Arsenal and destroyed the Republic’s fleet, Nasi’s immediate recommendation was for Selim to seize Cyprus from Venetian control. Malta was a slip, he told him. Cyprus was meant for this Sultan because Cyprus had the richest vineyards in the Mediterranean.
Nasi knew the lengths we the Ottomans—I—had gone to protect the peace with Venice. I myself had made sure Catherine de Medici’s request for favored trade status did not interfere with the Republic’s charge of Catholics in the Empire. And I’d make sure that the peace treaty we had in place was formally renewed. But Nasi was content to let all that go. Naxos and Paros weren’t enough for him. Nasi wanted a kingdom, whatever that means.
The normally imperturbable Grand Vizier, was more than incensed; he was disconcerted. It was hardly the frame of mind in which to demonstrate the soundness of our position. So I made the first attempt to talk sense into Selim.
He was not alone when I entered the Privy Chamber. The Sultan was on the floor in an embankment of cushions his weight had forced apart. His special agent was looming above him like a grave marker. I went over very close to Nasi, stood right in front of him and told him to leave, and he did.
Selim lay there in three directions, his legs flung out and his head at a bad angle on one of the cushions. His arms and hands, though, wherever they were in those endless sleeves, were crossed on his chest, and it surprised me how much dignity and calm there was in that pose and in his bloated face. It forced me to consider that Selim might, in fact, have thought of Cyprus as an aspiration of his own. I got down and tried to prop him up, but Selim was too big by half for me to move. A eunuch entered with food. “Help me with this,” I told him, which made Selim open an eye, blink, and try to lever himself up. The eunuch stood by, uncertain. I waved him away.
“Selim. Can you hear me? Listen to me,” I said quietly.
“I am not a child,” he said, getting his hind part beneath him.
“This plan about Cyprus is not a good one. It’s not in your interest. Believe me. If Nasi’s aim is achieved, Venice will be forced to join with Spain and, for that matter, with Rome. It will be a catastrophe.” It is exactly what your father warned against, I did not say. Probably I should have. Probably I should have run through the facts and aftermath of Malta, and their effect on Suleiman’s spirit and on his reign.
“Calm down,” was Selim’s reply. He was huffing, his lips pursed.
“Selim. Please. A threat of this sort is about the only thing that could antagonize the Christian powers into an alliance.”
“How do you know?” He was waking up.
“I’ve talked with Barbarigo.” In fact, I talked often with Barbarigo. “The Bailo,” I added, not sure he knew or remembered Barbarigo.
“Without asking me?” He closed one eye. The other demanded the answer.
“The Republic is committed to our good relations. Barbarigo assures me. My grandfather wrote the same thing a week ago. We mustn’t disturb this, Selim.”
“You don’t like your grandfather,” he said simply.
“I’m sorry about not asking you,” I replied, jarred. It had been years since I’d spoken about my grandfather to Selim.
“Maybe that’s why you look better. Softer.”
I had to decide, quickly, whether to indulge the desire to know what he meant—about my grandfather, and looking softer—or to try to stop an invasion of Cyprus. For sure I could not do both.
“I understand Nasi’s feeling toward the Republic, Selim. They treated him badly. But he has to contain his anger.”
“Hatred.”
“Yes. Hatred. I imagine that’s true. You understand then. Please, Selim.”
“I have plans.” He reached for a fig, nipped the end between his teeth, spat it to one side and dropped the fruit, whole, in his mouth.
“That is good, yes—it’s good to have plans. But Venice can’t defend herself. We mustn’t corner her.”
“Fine. No corners,” he chomped. “Leave me alone now. And stop talking about the place as if it is a woman.”
Cyprus had to be stopped, and neither Sokollu Mehmed nor I had the means to stop it. Selim was beyond our reach. Nasi was farther still. Between ambition’s pull forward and hatred’s pull back, reason had no force with Nasi—not that I could exert. Sokollu Mehmed’s animus disqualified him altogether. He himself knew that.
I needed help.
I considered the Admiral of the Fleet—another of my sons-in-law—and I considered the Head of the Treasury. Each had huge influence and a stake to match in anything Nasi did. But that was why each saw Nasi at an angle. I needed someone who would face him squarely, willingly.
Esther did not need to have the realness of the threat explained. She had grown up with hatred and carnage. She knew the metal-on-metal din of ships being armed; the misery it foretold of this man and that man; the suffering of the women left on wharfs and children in fields and in cradles. As an agent she knew, too, the goodwill that can be created out of nothing by a treaty, and how little it takes to return that goodwill to nothing. She would understand the meaning of Cyprus without my explaining.
All of that was true.
Esther had no objection to my argument, and she accepted the assignment to reason with Joseph Nasi, confident that he could and would see the risk of seizing Cyprus in a new light. I watched as she was rowed to Galata and as Nasi’s people welcomed her and helped her into the conveyance that bore her up the hill. She was there a long time. When she returned her confidence was intact. “He is known to be excitable,” she reported, “but not on this occasion. He listened carefully.”
“To what, Esther? Don’t be Delphic.”
She scowled. She despises pretension. “To the argument for maintaining peace.”
Exactly the right answer. This was about far more than an island. “And?”
She paused. “He said he deserved Cyprus.”
“Oh God.”
“Sumbul,” Esther said gravely, “bring tea.” Sumbul shot me a look. No one had ever given him an order but me.
I nodded to him. “And? And?”
“I told him I agreed that he was deserving . . .”
“Esther.”
“. . . and that that did not outweigh the importance of honoring our treaties.”
I took her arm. “Good! What did he say to that?” I could feel the smoothness of her skin through the silk. “He said nothing at first. He was reflecting. Then he said he understood the value of the peace. He, too, began to eat and to drink, and he became more at ease, and then he spoke of times we both recalled in Antwerp and later in France. We both recalled the journey.”
“What do you mean he, too?”
“Dona Gracia was there.”
“She was? You didn’t mention that.”
“I am mentioning it,” Esther said tartly. “Servants brought her many refreshments. A Nubian brought in apples from Crimea. I know the agent for those fruits. They are as big as melons, come packed in white wool in white boxes. She might as well have eaten pearls, for the cost. She consumed them with great refinement, even though she is fat.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing.”
“The whole time?”
Esther nodded. “Her presence was the statement. Nasi does not intend to upend the peace,” she said firmly.
“He told you that?”
“He did.”
One month later, March of 1570, the Admiral of the Fleet was ordered by the Sultan to impound every Venetian ship in the Golden Horn and to put every Venetian merchant in the capital behind bars. And that was not the worst. Selim had in the meantime sent a message to Doge Loredan:
From Selim, Lord of the Earthly Paradise and of Jerusalem, to the Signory of Venice:
We demand of you Cyprus, which you shall give us willingly or perforce and do not awake our horrible sword for we shall wage most cruel war against you everywhere, neither put your trust in your treasure, for we shall cause it suddenly to run from you like a torrent.
“With all respect,” Esther said, her face set with concern, “Do you think Joseph Nasi could force such a momentous move?”
Sokollu Mehmed clenched. “You do not question the wife of the Sultan.”
“Do you?” she said, a hand covering her mouth.
Sokollu Mehmed was right. She should not have asked the question. But she really did not know the answer. I was beginning to understand that. For the moment, though, we were at the far end of a long and trembling limb, Esther and I, each of us accusing the other’s patron. It is needless to say that her accusation was far graver than mine, but whether or not Nasi—or his aunt—was behind Selim’s order was not the point. The point was that the outcome could only be disaster.
Selim was not in the Privy Chamber when I looked for him after hearing of his demands, and Josag, ever lurking, claimed not to know where he was. The sky was turning red when I approached the Throne Room, and the latch was up on the closed door. I kicked it hard and with care, the way I’d been taught to kick a wolf trap. Slumped on the carpeted platform that supports the Imperial Throne, his robes on and off his body, was Selim. Three concubines, not mothers of his children, were sitting upon various parts of him. I backed away like any child who thinks she’s done something wrong because she’s seen something wrong.
Venice responded to Selim’s command with a declaration of war. While the great fire had indeed destroyed the fleet, it hadn’t destroyed the Arsenal itself, the largest manufacturing site in all of Europe. In fact, the Republic had been able to replace the vessels in seven months by means of a furious building program paid for by the sale of—what else?—noble titles.
I received two letters in the weeks that followed. Important, unwelcome illustrations of resolve. Safiye’s. The Republic’s.
My Dear Validem,
The haseki S. bore a daughter on the summer solstice. She is healthy and strong and will be called Aysha. Your first granddaughter!
Ismihan has sent word about the Sultan’s intentions regarding Cyprus. You will tell me how I may be of help.
Finally, the clock is complete and marvelous, as you would say. It includes an alarm feature and depictions of the phases of the moon. We are embarked now on design for a mechanical pump. Perhaps you will visit when we test it on the Gediz.
Your devoted,
Aslanin
Safiye’s determination made me sick.
The second letter was from my grandfather, describing the Republic’s celebratory response to Selim’s declaration of war—the white peace banners at the back, blue truce banners in the middle, crimson war banners leading the way. Doge Loredan, at eighty-eight, upright on the bow of his bucintoro as it crossed the lagoon to announce hostilities. Just like Nonno to omit no detail of pageantry.
Europe was not swift in its response to the Republic’s call for assistance, every power having her own reason for demurring. The Holy Roman Emperor still had a formal truce with us, Portugal had been decimated by plague, Ivan the Terrible we had our own problems with, Elizabeth of England had, to say the least, issues with the Church, and Catherine de Medici, as I’ve said, pleaded France’s favored trade status. She did, however, volunteer her son, the king—the pitiful Charles IX—as negotiator, which should have alerted me to her own state of mind.
This fractiousness was not lost on Nasi or the Admiral of the Fleet or Selim. It accounted for a certain euphoria when our fleet of eighty galleys and thirty galeots pushed out of the Dardanelles in May. When they joined at Rhodes with the vessels carrying the land forces, spirits rose higher still.
In the first days of July, the Ottoman forces landed more than fifty thousand men at Larnaca. The Venetians of Cyprus were not particularly effective upholders of Venetian law, any more than the Venetians of Paros had been, but they were dogged and proud, and the forces at Nicosia held out for six weeks before all twenty thousand were finished off.
Over the next weeks, the Spanish rolled out an array of excuses for not backing the Venetians on Cyprus, and when the Christians did finally come together, at Castellorizo, they decided that Cyprus could not be taken. Nicosia had already fallen. Our numbers and firepower were more than they were willing to take on.
The shameless performance of the Christian fleet convinced the Pope that the allies had to join together formally if they were going to withstand the Ottoman threat. And so they finally did—Rome, Spain, and the Venetian Republic—calling themselves the Holy League and giving new and diminished meaning to the word holy. They pledged to join annually to prosecute whatever campaign they deemed necessary to check us, and they were not going to miss the chance for an encounter in 1571.
By August the Holy League’s force was assembled at Messina. Two hundred galleys, a hundred round ships, fifty thousand foot soldiers and another five thousand men with mounts. Their commanders were Marcantonio Colonna for Rome; Don Juan, the half-brother of the King for Spain; and, for the Venetian Republic, none other than my father’s first cousin, Sebastiano Veniero. This indeed was when my correspondence with him began. It was invaluable—I daresay to both of us—and lasted till his death, which I’ll come to. In all events it was thanks to him that I learned the details of what happened on Cyprus. At Famagusta.
The siege had begun after the sack of Nicosia, the year before, when our forces numbered two hundred thousand. The League’s were eight thousand, but they had fought all through the fall and winter, and twice they were able to raid our encampments and hold their position. Throughout that time, Marcantonio Bragadin had been able to keep morale up with assurances that the joint fleet would soon arrive with provisions. Month after month Bragadin waited. By spring, the fleet had still not come. Bragadin tried to buoy his men with his own faith in the League’s intention. While they waited for relief, fifty thousand of our sappers began their work—circling Bragadin with trench and ravelin. The Holy League might as well have not existed for all the good they were to him. And still Bragadin held on. By summer, his force was down to a few hundred. The heat “settled on the island like a rug,” my father’s cousin wrote, and there was nothing at all left to eat, not a rat. And the firing continued. By August there was no hope at all of relief or survival. Bragadin let the white banner be hoisted. At least Famagusta would be spared the pillaging of Nicosia, he thought.
Late in September I received the longest letter my grandfather ever wrote me. I copy here the part about what happened next.
Bragadin met with Mustafa Pasha, the Ottoman commander. Terms were arranged. Bragadin and the few remaining of our officers stood before the Sultan’s representative. Bragadin himself gave the keys of the city to Mustafa Pasha. Then, for no reason we ever knew, Mustafa Pasha flew into a rage. He unsheathed his dagger and cut off Bragadin’s ears, then his nose. He had the Captain’s deputy beheaded. Then he did the same to every other Christian within reach and piled them outside the city gates—a pyramid of 350 heads. They kept Bragadin in a dungeon for a fortnight. When they released him, the middle of his face was a brown crater, and still he was not dead. So Mustafa Pasha had weights tied to his limbs and had him dragged behind a starving horse that chased a cart of meat. Then he had him tied naked to a tree in the piazza and had him flogged. By the time the floggers reached his waist, the flesh was hanging from Bragadin’s skeleton, but it was not until they reached his chest, that Bragadin died. The Turks cut off his head, stuffed his remaining parts with straw, and rode his separated body around the city for the benefit of victor and vanquished.
My dearest girl, what has come to pass on Cyprus is inhuman and grave. These are your people, Cecilia, both sides. Who but you can redress this atrocity? Tell your grandfather how he can be of assistance.
It was reasonable for Selim to believe that with Cyprus he had disarmed the Christian alliance. Since it was an achievement of which no one had thought him capable, it was also understandable that he wanted witnesses for his feat. “Tell my son to come up here,” he declared, as though he and Murad were at two ends of a ladder. “The boy, too,” as though Mehmed didn’t have a name. Not for one moment—not then or ever—did Selim feel vulnerable to his son. He had every reason to feel that way. And it says everything one needs to know about the kind of men they were by nature.
For Selim, there was no shame in the events of Famagusta. For me, there was. God, there was—and there is. I will never not have a stake in the welfare of Venice. It’s why I intervened last summer over Crete. The Admiral of the Fleet had it on his roster of seizable assets—that’s what he calls them. Sumbul found this out. I told the Admiral, in writing, that taking Crete, or any other Venetian possession, runs counter to our every interest. And that it would not happen. And it won’t. He has assured me. But I’m getting ahead of myself. That the prospect of seeing Murad and Little Mehmed for the first time since Selim had become Sultan could have eclipsed the shame of Famagusta by even a sliver says what I mean to say about how happy it made me.
Twice I’d asked Murad to visit. Twice he’d declined, owing to the births of his daughters, which, I surmised, had somewhat dampened his faith in Safiye’s predictions. She was distracted and inconsistent, Murad wrote, noting that her moods sometimes wore on the children. I doubted that Safiye’s temperament would cause him to put her aside though. For someone capable of firm if sometimes imperfect judgment, Murad has never been judgmental. He showed this when Suleiman failed to attend his circumcision. He proved it by accepting Safiye as she was. It tied my nerves in knots.
There were two suites in the harem that faced the water, Selim’s and mine. Next to each were rooms we’d assigned our Chief White and Black Eunuchs—Gazanfer and Sumbul: fine chambers with long terraces that commanded views of the entire Golden Horn. I would have requisitioned Gazanfer’s, but it shared a wall with Selim’s. So Sumbul obligingly yielded his quarters for Murad’s visit. It would be a good place, I thought, for Mehmed to run around. Also, a boy from the provinces would like watching the ships in the harbor. Any boy would.
I had not seen them since Suleiman went to Szigetvar. I’d missed the first five years of Mehmed’s life. All the first expressions and promises of who he was. All the chances to store them in the treasury he’d made out of my heart the moment Murad put him in my arms. And then, one morning, there he was. Mehmed—my every chance. Mehmed holding the hand of his father. My Lion and his Cub. Mehmed was tall for his age. He seemed to have the meekness of an older child, too. My recollection of Murad and the girls—of myself, in fact—was that at the age of five children are headlong. But Mehmed was contained. He wore a blue tunic that was shorter in front than back and blue leggings that tucked into yellow slippers with turned-up toes, not usual garments for a child, especially the slippers. The leggings were big on him and bunched around his knees. He was pulling them up when they entered. His father’s arm was around his shoulder.
Mehmed held a small bow in one hand and took his father’s hand in the other when he was done with his leggings.
“Valide,” Murad said, winded, grinning, kissing me three times. “What a pleasure to see you.”
I took Murad’s hand. “And what is that you’ve got?” I said to Mehmed.
He held out the bow.
“It is for you,” Murad said.
“Is that so?” I touched Mehmed’s flushed cheek. “Is that right?” He nodded. “Well then, let’s see what we have here.” I took the bow.
“I made it,” Mehmed said.
“He did, Valide. It is fine, don’t you agree?”
“Why of course you made it,” I said inspecting the bow from all sides. “You are a fine craftsman.” I slid my thumb up the knotty curve. “I have never had a bow, Mehmed. I am very pleased to have one from you.” I was aware of my heart pounding. The onset of a love that has been like no other.
“Yes,” he said in his clear small voice.
“I have been instructed to go immediately to the Grand Vizier’s quarters,” Murad said. “I have been informed he is vexed. He thinks I should have gotten here faster.”
“Your father wants you to see the fleet come in. You can understand. He is proud of his victory.”
“Of course. I have many things to speak with you about,” Murad said.
“I do, too,” I said, peering inside a little bag his son was holding open.
“I will come back as soon as I am able. The Grand Vizier will direct me to the Sultan, I suppose. Is that right? And then I shall return. You will be here,” he said. “Will you still be here?”
“Whenever you come back, Murad, I will be here. It might be best if you leave Mehmed with me for the time.”
“I had planned to have the Sultan see . . .”
“You might want to determine his condition first, Aslanim. Why don’t you go to the Sultan yourself. Then, if you like, return for Mehmed.”
Murad looked embarrassed and alarmed.
“Don’t be concerned. Just go to your father and come back. We will be right here, won’t we?” I said, hoisting Mehmed, who was the image of his mother, onto my lap. Mehmed put his arm around my neck, holding the bow he’d made against my back.
The fleet entered the channel the following morning. From Topkapi’s terraces I watched them dock. I then took my position in the Tower of Justice and took Esther with me, for both our sakes. We watched the ranks of the administration assemble around Selim. He wore a robe the color of iron and sat cross-legged on the ceremonial throne staring intently, blankly, at the space before him. Sokollu Mehmed and Joseph Nasi stood on either side. Murad was beside Sokollu Mehmed holding Little Mehmed by the hand. Next to them were the Sheikh ul Islam and the Chief Falconer, the husband of my daughter Shah. Behind them were the eldest of Selim’s five other sons. Three little boys—one four- and two three-year-olds—standing still, their arms straight at their sides invisible in their very long sleeves. Murad looked around at the children, all of them younger than Mehmed. His distress was unmistakable.
Outside Topkapi’s gate a different assemblage appeared—captains of the galleons leading mates and minions holding loot high for all to see. Enameled reliquaries, gold chalices, jeweled chasubles. The Admiral’s prize, though, remained concealed by the crowd assembling in careful formation around the Sultan. Then, like cards, they separated. The Admiral of the Ottoman Fleet was revealed at last—high in his saddle, bearing a pike on which was impaled the head of Captain Marcantonio Bragadin.
Sokollu Mehmed stiffened with a jolt. The little boys, still standing very still, began to cry. Little Mehmed threw up, and Murad clamped a wrist to his own mouth as he clutched Mehmed to his side. Selim, though, rigid as a dead man himself, stared straight ahead at Bragadin’s verdigris face.
I rushed to the stairwell. “Get those children away from there,” I yelled to the eunuchs patrolling the stairs. “Take them to their mothers!”
I returned to the window as Mustafa Pasha was loudly announcing the booty and then accounting for his troops—the few lost, the many garrisoned. Selim was silencing him with a listless wave. Nasi had edged right up to him, nearly touching the Sultan’s person. He was narrating the scene for Selim. He was making sense of things for him. The head on the pike, the glory, the opportunities. Murad, wiping Mehmed’s mouth with his sleeve, said something forceful to his father. He shot Nasi a look that would have withered anyone not made of whatever mineral that man was made of, and then he led Mehmed by the hand across the courtyard, scooped him up, and took the six flights to the Tower with Mehmed in his arms.
“Who is that?” Murad said, breathless as he put Mehmed down before me. “The one who has the Sultan’s ear in such a way? Do you know what he’s telling him? That one there,” Murad said, pointing at Nasi hovering over Selim. “He’s saying that the head of the Venetian, whoever he is, will be displayed for thirty days. In front of the Tower of Justice.” Selim’s little boys were still behind their father, trying to stand at attention as they’d been told, but they were crying, for Bragadin’s eyeless face wasn’t ten feet away.
I picked Mehmed up under the arms. He was light and limp, his robe soaked from being sick, his face a terrible grey. I sat him down sideways on my lap and put my arms around him. He let his head rest on my chest. I signaled Sumbul to come close—there’d be no more yelling—and whispered that he bring water, towels, a fresh tunic. Mehmed had closed his eyes. Murad was still at the window, quaking with rage. “Come away from there,” I told him gently. “There’s nothing more to see.” At the other window was Esther, staring, in her own blinded way, at Bragadin’s head. “And you come away, too, Esther.” I so seldom said her name, I heard my voice in the distance.
“Come away from there,” Murad said to her gently. He glanced at me to know what to do. Esther turned, her face full of all she couldn’t deny. Disgust, confusion, loss. Except for the last, I imagined that the other feelings were new to her. Esther had believed in Nasi. He had stood for the determining forces in her life—her faith and the will to practice it. He’d also stood for cunning beneficence and probably other things I didn’t know or couldn’t understand, so different had Esther’s and my journeys been. I imagined that, standing there transfixed, Esther was trying to know what could be salvaged from the illusion she had had of this person. I know how that kind of thinking can make a head crack. I know how awful the end of fantasy is—for it steals into parts of the heart and mind where nothing should be able to go. It is driven by the heat of what we long for, and it melts all that is in its path until it comes out into the open and is exposed for what it is: something that was never true.
“Murad,” I said quietly. “Help her away.”
Esther turned to me. “It is not for any of us to say what we deserve. We can say what we wish for. Not what we deserve.”
Murad took Esther’s arm and walked her to a sofa. She slid down onto it. Murad regarded the couch as though it were full of possibility and sat down, too. The two of them so differently gripped and refashioned in those moments.
I kept rocking Mehmed in my lap. When the servant came with fresh clothes I held him tighter, just as he did me. We’d get him cleaned up later.
“What will you do?” Murad said.
“I will speak to the Sultan as soon as he leaves the assembly. He’s not in his right mind. You understand that.” Murad nodded. “He mustn’t be demeaned, Aslanim. Not in public, not anywhere.”
“Our enemies will soon know about this,” Murad said softly. “They will seek revenge.”
I held Mehmed’s head close to my chest, covering his ear. “And we will show that what has happened here today is an aberration. We will remind our detractors how Suleiman was in situations like this. How he was with the Shi’ites when he freed Baghdad, how he was with Zrinyi at Szigetvar. Christendom can claw itself apart with its vanities and heresies. In the House of Islam—this awful spectacle notwithstanding—our finest symbol of victory is mercy. Mercy. We will find the means to make that known, Murad, throughout the House of War.” I said all this as though to a great and restive audience, which Murad was. Mehmed didn’t stir. Esther was back at the window, staring, continuing to undergo the change that would bind us and cause her to ascend and guide me in ways I am not done—even alone in this sealed chamber—with discovering.