I fancy Giulia was somewhat carried away by her enthusiasm and said more than she intended. I was so greatly agitated by her proposal that I lay awake until nearly morning. Conflicting ideas whirled round in my head and when at last I fell asleep I was tormented by nightmares in which I seemed to be wandering over a quagmire and vainly seeking firm foothold. I stumbled and fell; the purse dragged me down and down until my mouth was filled with marsh water and I was all but suffocated. I awoke with a shriek, bathed in cold sweat.
It seemed to me that this dream was an omen, and early in the morning I ordered the boatman to row me to the city. Having performed my devotions in the great mosque I turned my steps to Ibrahim’s palace, where I sought out a clerk of the secret intelligence and told him I had a matter of the greatest importance to communicate to the Grand Vizier in person.
I had to wait all day and far into the night until Ibrahim returned from the Seraglio, and when at last he received me it was with coolness and the request that I would not add to the great burden of his cares.
I told him all that Giulia had said and in confirmation would gladly have handed him the thousand ducats, had not Giulia already taken charge of it and dropped it into Alberto’s bottomless purse. The Grand Vizier flushed with anger and ground his teeth as he said, “Enough is enough! If that false, fanatical, scheming woman dares to meddle in statecraft I shall give her something to remember it by. God knows what devil beguiled the Sultan into laying his cloth upon that feline shoulder. She has brought him nothing but her sickly, epileptic blood. Better had her puny brats been strangled in the cradle-though not the Sultan’s best friend could have suggested such a measure.”
When he had stormed for some time I ventured to ask what I should do with the money.
“Keep it,” he said. “It’s of no significance. I am the one who decides questions of peace and war, for no one is powerful enough to oppose me. The Sultan follows my advice for he knows I’m the only one who cannot be bought-the only one with whom his interests come first. By the most sacred oaths of Islam he has sworn never to remove me from my appointment as Grand Vizier or do anything to harm me, for in all the world I am his only true friend. This was the condition upon which I took my place at his right hand.”
Resting his great brilliant eyes upon me he smiled and continued, “Perhaps I have neglected my friend the Sultan of late. I must procure him some fresh diversion and prevent that witch from vexing him every night with her mischievous whisperings. Master Gritti is in Buda, as you know, but you have a beautiful house, Michael el-Hakim, at a suitable distance and surrounded by a wall, so don’t be surprised if you should be visited one evening by a pair of wandering brothers. You’d do well to take a few poor poets under your patronage and treat them to a cup of wine and a kaftan. Beautiful poems, good wine, and ravishing stringed instruments can count for much in the destiny of nations. Your position will be much strengthened if you’re known to entertain eminent guests in secret. But for safety’s sake send away your wife and let her spend the night soothsaying in the harem.”
He broke off.and smiled, and for the first time I saw a cruel line about his mouth as he added, “Suppose I were to make Sultana Khurrem the present of a prediction! Your wife sees in the sand what best suits her. Persuade her if you can to foretell the succession of one of Sultana Khurrem’s sons to the throne. Every prophecy if it is to carry conviction must contain something of the quaint and unexpected. Let her say that Selim the epileptic will succeed, and we shall see what follows!”
He smiled broadly, but I could not share his amusement.
“Why the sickly Selim?” I asked. “My wife’s predictions have a disconcerting way of coming true, and I dislike trifling with these matters.”
Ibrahim bent forward and his eyes burned with anger as he said, “The Sultana is as blind as any other mother. She would see nothing strange in such a prophecy. But let her once hint a word of it to the Sultan and the scales would fall from his eyes. He has that fine boy Mustafa. How could he contemplate for a moment the accession of a feeble-minded epileptic to the throne of the Osmanlis?”
He added after a pause, “I can no longer rely on Master Gritti, who thinks only of his own advantage. I need a new meeting place where I can converse privately with foreign agents. Why shouldn’t you profit by this as Master Gritti did, since I have invested such vast sums in your house? Spread the rumor that in return for substantial gifts you can arrange secret interviews with me, and I will undertake to prove the rumor well founded, provided you don’t call upon me needlessly or for trifling matters. But that I may trust you absolutely you must keep careful account of all the presents you receive, and draw equivalent sums from my treasury. Only thus can I be sure that you won’t betray me out of sheer avarice.”
Thunderstruck at his munificence I stammered blessings, but with a laugh he bade me be silent, picked up his violin, and began to play a merry air that Venetian vessels had brought to Istanbul. Now it was that I glimpsed the full import of his proposal, for if the mightiest man in the Ottoman Empire made me his confidant I need set no bounds to my ambitious dreams. Bowing to kiss the ground before him I murmured, “Why, my lord Ibrahim? Why choose me?”
He touched my head carelessly with his henna-dyed fingers.
“Perhaps life is no more than a feverish dream. Then why not take a sleepwalker for guide? I may be fond of you, Michael el-Hakim, weak and pliable though you are. If I were a little fonder of you than I am I would strip you of wealth and send you out as a mendicant brother to seek Allah in the desert and among the mountaintops. Don’t expect too much of my confidence, for even if you knew my deepest secrets, me you would never know. But you once said something that went straight to my heart-that a man must be true to at least one human being.- Perhaps that is the task confronting me, for in fact a man can never be true to anyone but himself. My star, my destiny, a curse, or perhaps some inner power has raised me up above all other men. The essential condition for my existence is therefore unflinching loyalty to my lord the Sultan. His welfare is my welfare, his defeat my defeat, and his victory is for me too a victory.”
I returned through the darkness to my lamplit house whose every stair was fragrant with rose water. Giulia was still awake and came to meet me with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes. But a strange sense of unreality held me in its grip and I stared at Giulia as at a wraith-a wraith I did not know.
“Who are you, Giulia, and what do you want of me?”
Startled she drew back, saying, “What ails you, Michael? You’re quite pale. Your turban’s on one side and you’re staring like a madman. If you’ve heard some foolish tale about me, don’t believe it. I would rather you came straight to me than lent your ear to unfounded slander.”
“No, no, Giulia. What could anyone say against you? It’s just that I cannot understand myself or discover what it is I want. Who am I, Giulia, and who are you?”
She wrung her hands and burst into tears.
“Ah, Michael! Have I not warned you a thousand times not to drink so much? Your head won’t stand it. How can you have the heart to frighten me so! Tell me at once what has happened and what the Grand Vizier had to say.”
At her urgent whisper I awoke from the strange trance. The walls of the room returned, the table was solid beneath my hand; Giulia too was a creature of flesh and blood and I could see that she was very angry. But I looked upon her as upon a stranger and in a clearer light than formerly. I saw deep lines about her eyes and a look of malign cunning hardening at her mouth. Heavy ornaments clinked at her wrist and throat and the necklaces had made red marks on the lifeless white of her bosom. I felt no longing to gaze into her eyes and there seek peace and oblivion, as I had been wont to do.