“I should need the gold coin paid first, because I do not think you will be able to pay it after your lecture.”
10.
A WEEK BEFORE THEIR departure to Constantinople, after prayers, Dr. Ezzedine came as was his custom to the ambassador’s private apartments, nodded to the guardsmen outside, knocked twice, announced himself even as he was opening the door without waiting for assent, so comfortable was he in their routines.
But tonight, unlike all other nights when he was dressed for bed, awaiting only Dr. Ezzedine’s sleep-inducing preparations and a discussion of the day’s health concerns, the ambassador was seated behind a writing table, a single candle illuminating a flickering portion of his round, beardless face, his thin brown hair. “Sit,” he sighed.
The doctor sat across from the ambassador, who now waited some time before speaking, rubbing his eyes, looking at the ceiling, rubbing his eyes again. “Are you feeling discomfort?” asked Ezzedine.
The ambassador was silent a few unhappy moments longer, then sighed again, undamming a rush of words: “You have done something so foolish. I have no choice now but to involve myself in this nonsense. It is aggravating to me. I would have thought you more careful of yourself and more considerate of my needs.”
“I do not know how I have failed in my duty to you.”
“A boy said to you that God thought the world a turd.”
“How did you hear this?”
“And you accepted his offer to pay you to arrange his visit to court, where he would then mouth apostasy to the sultan and take his pleasure in the sultan’s seraglio, after he rendered everyone in court drunken and lustful.”
“Oh, no no, it was all in jest. In the English style.”
“A jest? Did you laugh? Did he?”
“That is not their style of jest. They speak the opposite of what they believe.”
“Was he doing that?”
“I certainly was.”
“So you did say all of that? The report is true? And you did not report any of this to Cafer.”
“I didn’t recall it when I made my report,” said Ezzedine feebly, but he could recall the moment he chose to tell Cafer of nothing other than discussions of herbs and the Earl of Essex’s sexual reputation.
The ambassador stared at Ezzedine’s chin for a long while and finally breathed deeply, almost smiled. “You do know that you possess in Qustantiniyya certain things he desires.”
“Things? Who desires?”
“How could you have exposed yourself to all this.” It wasn’t a question. It was stated almost pityingly, and then, self-pityingly, “He will make a matter of it at court when we return home. I cannot see how you will escape unpunished. Accusations will be made and answered; some vizier who protects and promotes Cafer will be called upon to judge; one of you will be punished. And I must tell you, my doctor, as a man who respects you, who is grateful to you: Cafer is better than you at all of this. I do not think you will prevail in shaping your words or catching the ear of the men who will have the sultan’s ear.”
Ezzedine was dazed by the rush of information. “But I have served the sultan well and with loyalty.”
The ambassador looked at the ceiling and said, “Yes, perhaps you are right.” His meaning was clear.
“Who desires what things? I don’t understand.”
“Do you really not?”
Cafer had come to his home, had accepted coffee and figs from Saruca. He had admired her grace, and the house, the garden. He had told Ezzedine that it had been Cafer himself who had convinced the sultan to send Ezzedine to England.
Ezzedine’s career as a healer prepared him not at all for the diseased moments of his travels, for those fleeting diagnostic opportunities where a different decision might have led to a different outcome. In the comfortable life in Constantinople, as physician to the family of the sultan of the Turks, he could identify a symptom, and from a symptom a cause, and from a cause a cure, whether herbal or dietary or astrological. Even in moments of growling medical crisis—a fever, a pustule, a fracture, a rupture—there was always a procedure to initiate, an ointment to apply. But away from all of that, when life-and-death decisions were political or personal, not medical, he had only uneducated guesses with which to protect himself. His recognition of danger blurred or dulled, or simply abandoned him. He did not know a disease was infecting him until it was nearly fatal.
He attempted the voice of a courageous man. “Even if he has me killed, she is a free woman. She can refuse him. She is not a slave to be granted to my conqueror.”
“Of course. But let us not waste our hours or spoil our night further. My feet ache.”
But the reality of power—a field of study Ezzedine had ignored, even as he benefited from it—could not be denied infinitely. He would be subject to its immutable laws whether he studied them or pretended they didn’t exist.
Many years later, the doctor would recall this scene, and finally he would fight, would demand, would calculate and strategize. But at the moment, Dr. Ezzedine was childishly frightened for his life, as if it still had value, and he thought it best to say nothing, until, slowly understanding the meaning of words he had heard and glances he had noticed, going back so many months, illuminated now by the reference to things he desires, he asked, “If I do not prevail in the sultan’s judgment, what protection can you give my wife and child from Cafer? They must not be his. To ensure their safety, I can perhaps offer you something of value now. Anything you might name.”
The ambassador appreciated that Ezzedine had hurried to catch up to the implications, at least: “I will think upon it. But now, please, Doctor, my feet ache.”
11.
WITH LESS THAN a week remaining until their wind-dependent return to Constantinople, the embassy was invited to the queen’s presence in honor of the third anniversary of the failed Spanish conquest of England. The chamber was hot and close, and the shadows and light from the fires and the torches played upon the ceiling in a show of tongues and demons. Ezzedine tried to stand near the window, where there was some cool air and a little gray daylight, but was pressed by crowd and shyness and his own preoccupations to the back of the Presence Chamber while the Master of Ceremonies glided through the room, signaling when a song should stop and a speech begin and another song rise from another corner.
Ezzedine, having spent months now in London, had almost accustomed himself to the cold, dark, childish little court, the parody of the wealth and pageantry awaiting him at home. He had, though, come to like the music, a little. His mind wandered as he listened, and he decided he would ask for written pages of it to take back with him to Constantinople, if it was written in the same codes as Turkish musicians used. If he was to be imprisoned in Constantinople for his behavior, for his polite (and diplomatic, he would argue) tolerance of other men’s apostasy, if he was to be made to look like a sympathizer of blasphemy, merely because bin Ibrahim lusted after Ezzedine’s wife, he would at least come home with something of value. No, no, no: He would not be imprisoned, because bin Ibrahim would not be believed. The service Ezzedine had done the royal family was too valuable, too clearly the service of a devoted and pious man. Or Ezzedine would not be imprisoned because bin Ibrahim would not be satisfied with only a temporary opportunity to steal Ezzedine’s property; he would insist on Ezzedine’s death. But the ambassador would protect Ezzedine. He would explain to the sultan. This was a question of loyalty first, and in that Ezzedine was above reproach.