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Overview
The Ottoman Empire was at the height of its power during the sixteenth century when Cecilia Baffo Veniero was kidnapped from her Venetian birthplace and chosen to be the wife of Selim II, successor to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. She would be known as Nurbanu.
The Mapmaker’s Daughter vividly imagines the confession of Nurbanu as she lies on her sickbed narrating the spectacular story of her rise to the pinnacle of imperial power, determined to understand how her extraordinary destiny was shaped. With unflinching candor, Nurbanu reviews the desires and motives that have both propelled and harmed her, as she considers her role as a devoted yet manipulative mother, helping to orchestrate her son’s succession to the throne. Serving as the appointed enforcer of one of the empire’s most crucial and shocking laws, Nurbanu confronts the consequences of her loves and her choices—right up to one last shattering revelation.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504047043 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Delphinium Books, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 07/25/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 368 |
| Sales rank: | 369,089 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Mapmaker's Daughter
The Confessions Of Nurbanu Sultan, 1525-1583
By Katherine Nouri Hughes
Delphinium Books, Inc.
Copyright © 2017 Katherine Nouri HughesAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4704-3
CHAPTER 1
Monday, November 7
I have always been propelled by deaths. No matter how they've grieved and ground me down. Eleven of them were worst of all, and among those were the boys'. Those deaths are the heart of everything. The Empire's order, now and to come. The Sultan's power and prospect. Who I am, and who I thought I was.
It's time I weigh their cost and worth. That they had — or have, or might have — worth is the crux and the story. I will tell it as far as I can see. For this is about seeing, not remembering.
Let me see, then. Let me see.
In what's left of my mind's eye I see this: a terrace, two mutes, blue bowstrings laid out on a ledge. I see five pieces of death disguised as string, as silk, as blue — one for each boy according to custom and to reason and to law. Chaos is poison. Competition is chaos. Each is a source of civil war. Fatih Sultan Mehmed — the Conqueror — established the law to stem it. And the ulema gave him strong support, maintaining its accordance with the Shari'ah. And to whomsoever of my sons the Sultanate shall pass, it is fitting that for the order of the world he shall kill his brothers. That law has held us together; secured our Empire; made us who we are — here in Topkapi, across the waters I look out upon, beyond Anatolia, beyond Baghdad, beyond Cairo, and Mecca, too. On warfields and peacefields, in harbors, tents, and caves, that law has kept order. It has lifted us up. And it has bowed us low, as well it might.
Let me see? I see I'm in bed burning with fever. I see my toes are beginning to turn black. I see blood under my fingernails. What is this? No mystery, I guess. I'm an aging woman back from a very long journey, and I've simply fallen ill. But just when I discover my son's wife has a heart! And my grandson has a son! Just when life opens wide as the world, I find myself sick from head to toe.
Hamon wanted to send for Murad the day it began. He's a worrier, Hamon. Who could blame him? He's a doctor, after all — Imperial Physician since before I was born. Plus, he's a Jew. Expelled with all the others from Cordoba in 1492. That's right — Hamon is very old. They got what they deserved, though — a safe haven here — because this dynasty is capable of wisdom. Very great wisdom. Imagine favoring Jews.
Still, I don't want to have Murad brought back from Edirne. He's hunting. He loves to hunt. He needs that time and entertainment. I just wish I'd seen him before he left. God, I do. I'm dying to thank him for his gift. It tells me so much that I didn't know — about him, about me, about what we have to look forward to. It's a whole universe, that gift. And I don't exaggerate — life is extreme enough. The journey I've just taken is quite a case in point. I encountered things I thought were gone from the world. I saw what I first laid eyes on and trusted and loved. I learned I should assume nothing about anyone — whether they're dead or alive, bad or good, wrong or right, someone else or me.
I know, too, that captivity is worse than death, as Esther always said, and as she's just troubled to remind me. She's like that. Not a qualm about rubbing things in. I told her about Murad's present and the joy it has released. And the turmoil. Yes, I told Esther about that, too, this morning. Murad's gift has made apparent a whole new realm of regret. So much time has been lost to misunderstanding. To not knowing what has been true all along. And time is running out. Even if I'm less sick than Hamon thinks I might be, time is running out. I know it. I feel pressed. Very, very pressed.
I told Esther all of this and that I didn't know what to do about any of it, and her answer was, "Understand it." I raised my hand to give her a punch, but Esther is very fast. She grabbed it, held it to her chest, and daubed my blistering forehead with all the love in the world. "It's time you write," she said. "All of it." It was a command. And to see that it's carried out, she left, came back, and handed me a stack of parchments pungent as the calves they've come from. Damp as their little cadavers, too.
I'm not sure I can do this. See what I need to see in order to understand. Esther says I can. "You have nothing to lose," she said. I told her I did. I think those were our first lies to each other — ever. "Do it," Esther said. "Do it."
And so I shall. My mind and heart are stretched like the parchment itself, and, lying on my back, I see things as they're meant to be seen — sideways. The movement of the Bosporus. The passage of time. Space and hours, end to end. Not stacked but stretched: The length of time it has taken me to be where I am. The length of time it will take me to see. Day by day. I will.
I know this before I put down one more word, though: the living, not the dead, prescribe the order. And mothers are the key.
There have been days of heaven and days of hell, and among them days that have changed life's course. I'll begin with the day I lost my mother. The day my grandfather showed his worth.
I am in Venice. It is 1537. I am eleven and sound asleep. My mother slips in, quiet as thread, and wakes me with her presence, her direction, her purpose and love. It is the Feast of the Ascension, and my mother has come to life. She says something about Paolo, our family's boatman, being ready since dawn. She opens the door to the balcony. There is the sound of wet rope slapping on stone. And a trumpet. My mother tells me her father's wish that we wear red — she and I. Blue outlines her slight frame as she comes close to kiss my forehead. Blue offers an account of her father's success with her and shows what she thinks of caprice. "You decide," she whispers. Then out she floats, and back I slide to dreaminess. Red, blue. Out, in. I listen to the covers' rhythmic hush and think about my breath making the world move, and a flutter augments the air. I believe an angel appears. Its wings are familiar, more flesh than feather, and on the banner floating above the angel, a message appears as if by virtue of my gaze. None of this surprises me. Choose, the rippling fabric says. I can see only that word. A feast day message, no doubt. It is the Ascension, after all. Christ is risen of His own accord. Anything could happen. That is the point. That He has done that unimaginable thing. And that we know that He has. I get up, and the day begins.
My mother shuns public displays of all kinds, but this one — the day that commemorates Byzantium's recognition of Venetian supremacy — is her one exception. The ceremony reenacts the marriage of Venice to the Sea, and she loves it — probably because this is a marriage that makes sense. My mother's blue dress is billowy as a bride's, and her look could have inspired Crivelli. Her almondine face set with acceptance. Her large-lidded, knowing eyes. Her exceptional fingers. I wear blue to mirror her. But I don't wish to resemble her, beautiful as she is. And I don't know why. Not then, I don't.
"There you are!" my grandmother gurgles, grabbing fistfuls of skirt. She holds out her arms like railings for the attendants to grab, and as she settles herself into our family's feast day gondola, my grandfather takes his own steps into thin air and, unaided, lowers himself into his favorite possession that isn't a book. Sparing myself a command from him, I speed across the slick stones while my mother advances in her own way, like a piece of silk or water.
"What do you think?" my grandfather is saying to his fingers. He is stroking the lynx that's all over his chest. I hop on the vessel.
"Very grand," I assure him. The voices of castrati fill the air. My attention is on the cloudy water we've begun to slice — we, the occupants of that lacquered hull. "Avanti," Nonno calls out. He's agitated. "Subito, Paolo. Subito!"
"Calm down," my grandmother says helpfully. She pats my grandfather's collar. "You will see him."
And he does — just as Doge Andrea Gritti is emerging from the basilica on his canopied litter. Scepter in hand, essentially regal, the Doge is God's intermediary, after all — though not so trusted he is allowed to even open a letter in private — ah no: checks on power in Venice are legion, warranted, effective. Still. If there is any doubt about the Doge's backing by God, one need only consult his retinue: the Ducal Sword Bearer, the Republic's Senate, the full diplomatic corps. Nonno stands in homage as we all process toward the baubled barge into which Andrea Gritti climbs. The Doge is clad entirely in gold: velvet puffy pants, dragon-scaled waistcoat, buckle set with a ruby the size of a clam. Gold, gold, and more gold. And on his head, atop the red linen cap that covers his ears and brow, is the curved golden camauro. He looks like a bird that's become a plant.
There he is that scorching festa noon, empowered and enthroned as boats amass by the thousands, waiting for him to lead the way. The barge's gold-painted bowsprit,Justice, juts her breasts eastward past the Lido to where the lagoon meets the sea. "This is our city at her best," my grandfather proclaims of the entire scene. The staves of his own jutting chest bend with pride.
From every parish, citizens are coming out, many of them, too, draped in marten, miniver, and lynx. Encumbered, expectant, they row in the Doge's wake. Then they form many circles around where he drops anchor to propitiate the sea with holy water, a ring, and a vow, renewed each year. Desponsamus te mare, in signum veri perpetuique domini. We espouse Thee, O sea, as a sign of true and perpetual dominion. I can see the tautening of the Doge's old neck as he lifts his voice above the slap and clatter of waves and oarlocks.
From one moment to the next, the wind changes direction. It scuds across the canal as the boats fan to right and left of the Doge's, and it catches one of the vessels, the Carusos', from starboard. It fills its thick sail and makes the boat jibe — always a huge motion and, in this case, a violent one owing to the sudden shift. The boom slams from left to right, and because all eyes but mine, it seems, are on the holy beaker, only I see Carlo Caruso, a boy my age, thrown over the stern. He goes over back first. Black velvet pooling where it was never meant to be.
"A boy's gone over," I call out, getting to my feet and lunging forth. My grandfather yells at me to sit down. "Carlo. Carlo Caruso has gone over," I yell back, scrambling ahead.
My grandfather's lion head snaps left and right to see what I've seen. Then Carlo's hand reaches out from the water to grab the rim of the boat. "He's there." I am set to dive.
"Cecilia!" my mother cries out.
For one second, there is Carlo's pleated cap, soaked and askew. But then the boats on each side of him, his own and a larger one, clap together hard, about where his hand is. The last thing I see of it is a palm without fingers. My grandfather has covered his eyes for the collision, and he keeps them covered as though he is trying to understand a problem, as though there is nothing to see or do. "Hold on to her," my mother orders Paolo as she pushes on his shoulder for thrust.
"I'm going, too," I yell.
My mother's eyes are on the Carusos' boat. "You stay there, Cecilia," she commands. In an instant, she is on the boat next to ours, on the one next to that — they're rafted tight in solidarity and respect for the occasion — and then on the stern of Carlo's boat where his father, Jacopo Caruso, who once proposed marriage to her, is turning in circles like a dog trying to find where his son is. My mother dives in, blue and gold, skirt and sleeves.
My grandmother stands up, draws a breath from the bottom of the lagoon and shrieks, causing my grandfather to open his eyes and to finally watch and see.
Paolo holds me fiercely. My mother is down. And still down. And still. My grandfather looks on. No one says a word.
The first head to emerge is Carlo's — his eyes open and milky. Then my mother's breaks the surface. She is coughing and tangled in Carlo's clothes and holding him around the chest.
"Thank God," my grandmother cries out when she sees her. My grandfather closes his eyes again and bows his head. He makes the sign of the cross with his thumb on his lips.
Carlo's father needs help to haul in his dead boy. When he is in the boat the broken nobleman takes him in his velvet arms, falls to the floor and rocks him, screaming like a woman.
Then all eyes are on the water again to where my mother is, or should be.
"Where is she?" My grandmother is waving her arms wildly. "Violante!"
"Mamma," I scream and pray. "Mamma!"
"Get her," my grandfather commands Paolo, as he takes me by the upper arm — his hand encircling and crushing my arm — exactly as the only other person who would ever again hold me forcibly will do four months later. Never mind the different motives. The gesture is the same. A grip that announces death. "Go. Go!" my grandfather yells at Paolo. Paolo grabs the cork belt stowed for emergency, leaps onto the boat next to ours, and dives in. My grandfather watches. He does nothing.
By that time, the Doge himself is aware there is trouble. His bucintoro is being rapidly oared clockwise, and he is moving toward the prow to see for himself what has happened. Others row close to the Caruso boat, which is rocking sharply in time with Jacopo Caruso's doubling grief. Beside it Paolo keeps coming up for air, again and again, each time without my mother. "Mamma," I am crying, my arm weakening in my grandfather's alarming grasp. Still, he does nothing.
"Find her," Doge Gritti calls out to nearby crew. They tear off finery and boots, they grab flotational gear — bundles of reeds, cow bladders pumped with air — and jump in the lagoon. Its just-quelled waters are chopped and foamed from all the arms and sputtering mouths. No one can swim. They're just doing their best.
My grandfather calls out, "Look." He lets go of me to point to the Doge. Gritti has torn off his gold hat and is struggling to rid himself of his huge belt and is about to jump in when my mother's head, fanned with skirt, breaks the surface not far from Gritti's barge. One of his men catches hold of her. Strapping his arm across her chest, he frees her from her misplaced garments. Then he looks with horror upon her face.
Of my mother's funeral I remember only the ride out to Murano. We each go alone. My mother is first in our everyday gondola. She is in a box that appears to be part of the hull that carries it, but it's not. It's a coffin. Shiny, black, sealed without a seam. I wonder if my mother's eyes are open in that black place. They were open when they hauled her onto the deck of the Doge's barge. I wonder if she saw him even though she was dead. I wonder if she knew that the Doge was bowed in his glory over her, stunned, clasping her hand between his own. He had admired her. He'd had reason. I wonder if she can see me from inside her coffin. Can she see that I'm alone with Paolo? Does she know I refuse to ride with my grandfather? That her mother won't attend her funeral at all? Does she know what sort of parents she had? Can she help me understand what is happening? Make stop the uncomprehending panic of knowing she is dead? Not that I believe that she is dead. I do not. Her hand was on my forehead one day before. Her magic voice — always saying what was true — was alive. Now it is not. Now it is gone, and it is worse than gone. It is gone forever. I have no idea what that means. I had no time to understand any of this before it happened. No time to prepare. As though that were possible.
And the second death. Nine weeks and three days after my mother's. I am back on Paros, and it is my birthday. Sylvana's — her fifty-fourth — was the week before. Birthdays have been dear to us all the years we've lived together. Sylvana, my mother, and I have celebrated them as though each belongs to the three of us. To this day, I feel I have three birthdays. While some, over the years, have been no cause for celebration, that one, my real, true twelfth, is the worst. My birthday without my mother.
"A day like this should not exist in the world," I tell Sylvana. "There should be no such thing as a child with a dead mother. My birthday is over."
"Certainly not," Sylvana says. "We will honor it, this evening — in Naoussa. I have something special for you. Furthermore, your birthday will be honored always. I will make sure. And you know what I think about always. Rare as an eclipse." Succinct by nature, Sylvana also knows her stars, the workings of the heavens.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Mapmaker's Daughter by Katherine Nouri Hughes. Copyright © 2017 Katherine Nouri Hughes. Excerpted by permission of Delphinium Books, Inc..
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