Omar unclasped a box and unwrapped the small bundle inside. He called Kamil over and handed him a tiny icon, an exquisitely painted Madonna and child.
“With a little patience, the egg on the ground becomes a bird in the sky,” Omar remarked with satisfaction.
Kamil felt elated. This discovery would do more to quell the unrest in the streets than the entire Ottoman army. He wrapped the icon carefully and put it back in its box.
They returned to their search.
“Hold on a moment, what’s this?” Kamil pulled something from a trunk, a misshapen silver object with niello engraving. It was Malik’s stolen reliquary.
He and Omar grinned at each other.
“Hail to the Queen,” Kamil declared, but quietly so Battles didn’t hear.
33
Balkis shivered under the covers despite her fever. Saba sat beside her and pressed her hand against her mother’s forehead. “You’re very hot, Mama,” she said worriedly. “Gudit is making you some apple and rosewater compote.”
“Gudit,” Balkis whispered. “Tell her.”
“Tell her what, Mama?” Gudit had found Balkis the day before lying on the divan and bleeding from a deep cut in her wrist. The midwife claimed her mother had tried to kill herself, but Saba didn’t believe her. She couldn’t imagine her mother, who had so much strength of will, turning her back on them just when they needed her. It must have been an accident. The top-heavy monstrance must have fallen onto the divan, and her mother must have reached up to ward it off and gouged herself. The cut itself wasn’t deep enough to be life-threatening and Saba could think of no other explanation. She had found the monstrance on the floor, one of its tines broken and bloody, the others bent. She had kicked it vengefully, then thrown it into the storeroom.
Saba sat for a moment, frowning, then sent for the old servant and told him to fetch Courtidis. Her mother was shaking uncontrollably and an unpleasant odor clung to her. Saba sent another servant to heat some water.
Balkis twisted back and forth on the divan and muttered, “Container of the unbearable, hail Mary, I can’t bear it, I can’t bear your message, I can’t…”
The servant arrived with the bowl of hot water, along with washcloths, a towel, and some gauze. Saba sent her away, then locked the door and made sure there were no drafts. She felt embarrassed at what she was about to do, for she had never seen her mother naked.
“I’m going to bathe you, Mama.” Her mother had quieted. She lay with her eyes closed, breathing erratically. Saba wondered if she had fallen asleep. She took the bandage off her mother’s wrist and carefully washed the torn flesh, then wrapped on fresh gauze, securing it with a strip of cloth. Next she lifted the quilt and laid it aside. The smell was stronger. She quickly peeled off her mother’s caftan and chemise. The fetid stench hit her like a blow and she jerked her head away.
When she turned back, she froze. Her mother’s body below the waist was a ruin. Balkis turned slightly and her legs opened enough for Saba to see that she had been horribly mutilated. Instead of the natural contours of a body, there was only a scar. It was infected and inflamed.
Saba was speechless. When her mother began to moan, Saba pulled herself together and focused on washing Balkis quickly so she wouldn’t catch a chill. She dipped the cloth in warm water and began her task, starting with her mother’s forehead and working down the sagging folds of gray skin until she came to her legs. Consumed equally by pity and disgust, Saba cleaned away the pus that seamed the scar.
She had just finished dressing Balkis in a clean chemise, when there was a peremptory knock at the door. Saba quickly covered her mother with a clean quilt and unlocked the door.
Gudit hurried in, carrying a dish with a lid. “The compote,” she explained. “The apples will break her fever. Why was the door locked?”
“She’s delirious.”
Gudit put the dish down and went to Balkis’s side. “Oh,” she said, surprised. “You’ve changed her clothes.”
“I washed her,” Saba said. Gudit knew. She was the one who usually helped her mother with her toilette. “I saw. What happened to her?”
Gudit gave her a sly look. “That’s not for you to know.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Saba shouted. “She’s my mother.”
“She’s the priestess,” Gudit responded in a haughty voice.
“In the name of Allah, what does that have to do with anything?”
When Gudit didn’t respond, Saba suddenly remembered what her mother had said about the priestess being celibate after initiation. What had been her exact words? That after her initiation, she would no longer want to have relations with her husband.
“Is this part of the initiation?” she asked, appalled at the thought.
Gudit turned her leathery face toward Saba and smiled.
It had to have been Gudit. She was the only one who knew how to do the special tattoo of ashes mixed with mother’s milk. She was the one who knew all the steps of the ritual. This squat, sour woman who had always seemed so devoted to her mother, who had taught Saba the Melisite prayers when she was a child, and under whose blue-tipped tattoo needle Saba had suffered for weeks-Saba was now seeing her with new eyes. She remembered with a chill Gudit’s attack in the hamam and the knife she had spied on the floor as she ran away.
“Did she know?” Saba asked, guessing the answer. If the ritual had allowed it, her mother would have prepared her long ago. “Of course not.” She said, answering her own question. “No one would go along with it, would they, if they knew?”
“The women of this family have been purified for hundreds of years. No one has ever complained.”
That was so ludicrous that Saba had to laugh. “That we know of. That’s not counting the ones who were killed because they refused or who died of infections afterward. Have you taken a look at her?”
“What do you mean?” Gudit stroked Balkis’s forehead. “She’s been ill for a long time. Only Allah knows when it’s her time.”
“I’m not a doctor, but I know an infection when I see one. You never said a word about it. Constantine might have been able to do something. Instead, you let it fester.”
“That man thinks opium cures everything,” Gudit grumbled, propping Balkis’s head up on a pillow. “I’ve been treating it. The old ways are best.” She got up to ladle the apple compote into a bowl and sat beside Balkis with a spoon. “Eat some of this, dear.” Gudit’s hand shook and she spilled juice on the fresh sheets.
“Begging your pardon, may I enter?” Courtidis’s voice boomed through the doorway.
“Come in, Constantine.” Saba was relieved to see him. “Thank you for coming so quickly. Mother is delirious. She has an infection. I’m very worried about her.”
He walked in and put down his leather bag. He had taken off his shoes in the entry and Saba noticed his socks had holes in them. He faltered a moment when he saw Gudit sitting by Balkis and blocking his access. “Begging your pardon, I’ll just take a look at the patient, shall I?” he said meaningfully, approaching the divan.
Gudit didn’t budge.
“Get up, Gudit.” Saba said with surprising authority.
Gudit hesitated, but obeyed. She hovered at the edge of the room, looking on sullenly.
Saba regarded Courtidis’s back as he bent over her mother, soothing her as he looked into her eyes and mouth and palpated her neck and chest through the quilt. His low, calm voice talked on and on about nothing significant, like a chant. She could imagine her mother taking hold of this rope of words and hanging on.
She walked over and put her hand on his shoulder. He stopped moving for a moment, as if paralyzed.
“Thank you, Constantine,” she said softly into his ear.
Courtidis took a deep breath and continued what he was doing. His brief smile was quickly replaced by a frown.
“She’s had a low-grade fever for a long time,” he said. “There’s probably an infection, but she wouldn’t let me examine her, so I’ve just given her powders to bring her temperature down.” He hesitated. “This is something different.”