Yashim was one of the exceptions. He could go where no ordinary man could go, on pain of death.
It did not do to make too much of the harem itself. It wasn’t the harem which made eunuchs, though many of them worked there, and the black eunuchs, led by the Kislar Agha, effectively controlled it. Unlike Yashim, unlike many of the white eunuchs, unlike the castrati of the Vatican, the black eunuchs of the palace were utterly clean-cropped: shaved to the quick in a single sweep of the sickle blade, wielded by a slaver in the desert. Each of them now carried a small and exquisite silver tube, tucked into a fold of their turban, for performing the most modest of bodily functions.
Yet men had been gelded for service in the time of Darius and Alexander, too. Ever since the idea of dynasties arose, there had been eunuchs who commanded fleets, who generalled armies, who subtly set out the policies of states. Sometimes Yashim dimly saw himself enrolled into a strange fraternity, the shadow-world of the guardians: men who since time immemorial had held themselves apart, the better to watch and serve. It included the eunuchs of the ancient world, and of the Chinese emperor in Beijing, and the whole Catholic hierarchy in Europe, too, which had supplied the celibate priests who served the kings of Christendom. Didn’t the Pope in Rome himself serve man and God? The service of barren men, like their desires, began and ended with their death; but in life they watched over the churning anthills of humankind, inured from its preoccupation with lust, longevity and descent. Prey, at worst, to a fondness for trinkets and trivia, to a fascination with their own decline, a tendency to hysteria and petty jealousies. Yashim knew them well.
As for the harem, none of the women there could come or go at will, of course. So Yashim’s current business in there was, in that sense, a more private affair. Even time, Yashim reflected, ran differently on the inside: the harem could wait. Outside, as the Seraskier had warned, he had just nine ordinary days.
Brushing the crumbs of the borek from his lips, Yashim decided that he would visit first the Guild, and then pay his call on the Seraskier. Afterwards, depending on what he learned, he would go and question various people in the harem.
[ 13 ]
Mustafa the Albanian sniffed suspiciously at the bowl of tripe. There were, he knew, certain parties in the city who had embraced heretical doctrines. Daily, he was certain, they were extending their dangerous influence over the weaker, more impressionable members of society: young men, people from out of town, even students at the medreses who surely should know better, found it all to easy to succumb to the subtle blandishments of these rogues. Some of them, he was well aware, simply abused the authorities’ trust. Others—and who could say they were not encouraged by that baleful example?—recognised no authority at all. Well, he thought grimly, he was there to root them out.
He sniffed again. The colour of the soup was good: no obvious sign of innovation there. Mustafa was of the school that followed the saying of the Prophet, peace be on him: in change there is innovation, innovation leads to blasphemy, blasphemy leads to hell fire. The notion that a good tripe soup needed the addition of a pinch of pounded coriander was the kind of innovation which, if left unchecked, would gradually undermine the whole guild and destroy its ability to serve the city as it should. It made no difference whether the heretics charged extra for the spice, or not: the confusion would have entered men’s minds. Where there was a weakness to be exploited, there would greed find its encouragement.
Mustafa sniffed again. Lifting the horn spoon that hung around his neck as a symbol of his office, he dipped it into the bowl and turned the contents over. Tripe. Onions. Regularly shaped, faintly caramelised. He dug down to the bottom of the bowl and examined the spoon carefully in the light for any specks or impurities. Satisfied, he lifted the spoon to his lips and sucked noisily. Tripe soup. He smacked his lips, his immediate fears allayed. Whatever secrets this young apprentice held in the recesses of his heart he could definitely make the proper article on demand.
Two anxious pairs of eyes followed the spoon to the guild master’s lips. They saw the soup go in. They heard the soup flow about Mustafa’s palate. They watched anxiously as he held his hand close to his ear. And then they watched, delighted, as he nodded curtly. An apprenticeship redeemed. A new master soupier born.
“It is good. Keep an eye on the onions: never use them too large. The size of your fist is good, or smaller.” He brought up his own massive paw and curled the fingers. “Too big!” He shook the fist and laughed. The apprentice tittered.
They discussed arrangements for the apprentice’s formal induction into the guild, his prospects, the extent of his savings and the likelihood of his finding an opening within the next few years. Mustafa knew that this was the most dangerous moment. Newly fledged soupiers always wanted to start right away, whatever the circumstances. It took patience and humility to carry on working for an old master while you waited for a shop to come free.
Patience, yes. Impatience led to coriander and hell fire. Mustafa tugged at his moustache and squinted at the young man. Did he have patience? As for himself, he thought, patience was his second skin. How could he have lived his life, and not acquired patience in positively redemptive quantities?
[ 14 ]
It was a singular request, for what use could a man have for a play cauldron at this time of the year? Mustafa the Albanian seemed to hear a dangerous word whispered in his ear. Was it not an innovation, to let a stranger examine the store-rooms of the guild of soup-makers? It certainly seemed an insidious precedent.
Yashim blinked, smiled and opened his eyes wide. He thought he could guess exactly what was going through the old soup master’s mind.
“I’m known at the palace: the gate-keepers there could vouch for me, if that’s a help.”
The guild master’s frown remained firmly in place. His massive hands lay quietly folded over his paunch. Perhaps, Yashim thought, the palace card was the wrong one to try: every institution in the city had its pride. He decided on another throw.
“We live in strange times. I’m not so young that I can’t remember when things were…better ordered, in general, than they are today. Every day, right here in Istanbul, I see things I’d never have dreamed of seeing in my young days. Foreigners on horseback. Dogs literally starving to death on the streets. Beggars in from the countryside. Buildings removed to make way for strange mosques. Prankish uniforms.” He shook his head. The soup master gave a little grunt.
“The other day I had to return a pair of slippers that had cost me forty piastres: the stitching was coming away. And I’d only had them a month!” That was quite true: Yashim had bought the slippers from a guildsman. For forty piastres they were meant to last a year. “Sometimes, I’m sorry to say, I think that even our food doesn’t taste quite the way it used to.”
Yashim noticed the soup master’s fingers clench and wondered if he’d gone a bit far. The soup master put a hand up to his moustache and rubbed it between his finger and thumb.
“I’m a eunuch,” Yashim said.
“Aha,” the soup master said complacently. Well, he thought, that bit about the palace was probably true.
“Tell me,” he rumbled. “Do you like coriander seed? In soup?”
It was Yashim’s turn to frown.
“What a peculiar idea,” he said.
Mustafa the Albanian got to his feet with surprising agility.
“Come,” he said simply.
Yashim followed the big man onto the balcony around the courtyard. Below the balustrade, under the arcade, men were busy frying tripe. Apprentices staggered to and fro with buckets they’d filled from the well in the centre of the court. A cat slunk through the shadows, weaving between the legs of enormous chopping blocks. Yashim thought: even the cat has its position here.