harem.” An Eastern pundit had once written those words, playing on the fact that in Arabic, sun is feminine. Unlike the male sun in Italian, a beneficence, the Arabic is a malevolent fury, a barren woman who seeks to scorch the entire world to her own fate. Under the harem’s lattices, even women condemned to childlessness like Belqis were protected from all but the most innocent of that celestial female’s wrath.
Belqis laid out her pens, her inks in five colors. Deciding after the morning’s labors she would have to grind more black, she did so, oak galls on a slate palette. Rose water turned the powder to liquid.
Now Belqis set a straight edge down the right-hand side of the paper, leaving a generous margin at least as wide as her own palm, and marked a crease at this point the full length of the page with the rounded tip of a stick of sandalwood. In France, they would smell that fragrance, and the distilled roses in the ink.
Then the scribe sat back on her heels and waited orders to begin.
Something did not seem quite right to me, not about Belqis but about Safiye. I could never have ease in the Fair One’s presence; I told myself there was probably no more to suspect than usual. Yet I couldn’t help but probe the deceptively still and murky waters a little.
“How did you become a correspondent of Catherine de’ Medici?” I asked. “She is the Queen Mother and effective ruler of France.”
“Quite simple.” Safiye displayed no hesitation to answer directly. “Catherine sent customary gifts with her new ambassador and Ghazanfer had only to suggest to the Divan that since these were gifts from a woman, it would not be appropriate for men to accept them. They were meant to be kept behind the curtain of modesty.”
“That makes perfect sense.” Esmikhan’s tone was warning me off. My distrust of her best friend always grieved her.
“Ghazanfer saw that they came to me,” Safiye continued. “They were nothing much, nothing the outer treasury would miss: some lace, a casket of onyx engraved with nude figures.”
Esmikhan said, “Such things are better suited to the harem in the first place—if not to be tossed out at once for obscenity.”
“What we thought exactly. Still, any gift requires a thank-you note.”
That was as far as I dared carry my questions. So I fell silent, as a eunuch ought, and determined to watch all the more carefully instead.
“The usual sort of formulaic opening.” Safiye turned to instruct her scribe.
And in firm black, Belqis wrote “Allah” in what would be the largest letters on the page, leaving again an elegant, opulent margin at the top.
“Allah is the Helper” centered carefully in the field of yellow-white.
“An excellent choice of invocation on a letter that would beg the receiver’s aid.” Esmikhan gave her blessing, whether Heaven would or no.
I suspected the whole elegance of the parallel would be totally lost in France’s court, even in a direct translation. But I couldn’t dampen my lady’s spirits so.
The scribe, meanwhile, dropped down a line and without dictation went on, lavishly praising the lords of the universe in descending order, all in rhymed prose couplets. Allah was “the Absolute and the Veiler,” the “Originator of shapes and colors...exalted be He above His Creation.” And that Creation was “ornamented by the perfumed sepulcher and pure soul of Lord Muhammed, the Seal of the Prophets...the beautiful reflection of the Garden of Paradise in the dark pool of earth...the crown on the head of happiness, the pearl in the shell of existence.”
Over every skillful turn of phrase, Esmikhan exclaimed, sometimes so struck at the verbiage that she could manage no more than a “ Mashallah ,” of wonder.
For her part, Belqis, to whom such turns of language were second nature, most of them trite repetitions and mainstays of the imperial scribal schoolroom, had her own pleasure. For each phrase, she changed to a different color
Belqis laid out her pens, her inks in five colors. Deciding after the morning’s labors she would have to grind more black, she did so, oak galls on a slate palette. Rose water turned the powder to liquid.
Now Belqis set a straight edge down the right-hand side of the paper, leaving a generous margin at least as wide as her own palm, and marked a crease at this point the full length of the page with the rounded tip of a stick of sandalwood. In France, they would smell that fragrance, and the distilled roses in the ink.
Then the scribe sat back on her heels and waited orders to begin.
Something did not seem quite right to me, not about Belqis but about Safiye. I could never have ease in the Fair One’s presence; I told myself there was probably no more to suspect than usual. Yet I couldn’t help but probe the deceptively still and murky waters a little.
“How did you become a correspondent of Catherine de’ Medici?” I asked. “She is the Queen Mother and effective ruler of France.”
“Quite simple.” Safiye displayed no hesitation to answer directly. “Catherine sent customary gifts with her new ambassador and Ghazanfer had only to suggest to the Divan that since these were gifts from a woman, it would not be appropriate for men to accept them. They were meant to be kept behind the curtain of modesty.”
“That makes perfect sense.” Esmikhan’s tone was warning me off. My distrust of her best friend always grieved her.
“Ghazanfer saw that they came to me,” Safiye continued. “They were nothing much, nothing the outer treasury would miss: some lace, a casket of onyx engraved with nude figures.”
Esmikhan said, “Such things are better suited to the harem in the first place—if not to be tossed out at once for obscenity.”
“What we thought exactly. Still, any gift requires a thank-you note.”
That was as far as I dared carry my questions. So I fell silent, as a eunuch ought, and determined to watch all the more carefully instead.
“The usual sort of formulaic opening.” Safiye turned to instruct her scribe.
And in firm black, Belqis wrote “Allah” in what would be the largest letters on the page, leaving again an elegant, opulent margin at the top.
“Allah is the Helper” centered carefully in the field of yellow-white.
“An excellent choice of invocation on a letter that would beg the receiver’s aid.” Esmikhan gave her blessing, whether Heaven would or no.
I suspected the whole elegance of the parallel would be totally lost in France’s court, even in a direct translation. But I couldn’t dampen my lady’s spirits so.
The scribe, meanwhile, dropped down a line and without dictation went on, lavishly praising the lords of the universe in descending order, all in rhymed prose couplets. Allah was “the Absolute and the Veiler,” the “Originator of shapes and colors...exalted be He above His Creation.” And that Creation was “ornamented by the perfumed sepulcher and pure soul of Lord Muhammed, the Seal of the Prophets...the beautiful reflection of the Garden of Paradise in the dark pool of earth...the crown on the head of happiness, the pearl in the shell of existence.”
Over every skillful turn of phrase, Esmikhan exclaimed, sometimes so struck at the verbiage that she could manage no more than a “ Mashallah ,” of wonder.
For her part, Belqis, to whom such turns of language were second nature, most of them trite repetitions and mainstays of the imperial scribal schoolroom, had her own pleasure. For each phrase, she changed to a different color
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