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hair—these things, these charlatans’ ploys, they’re harmless. Not like what the quacks might do to you.”
    They’d already done their worst to me, I thought, then said: “Such hocus-pocus might make a woman hope for what is not to be.”
    For the first time, the Quince looked studiously away from me, almost as if she couldn’t meet my eye. “Well, usually the readings of such idle tricks are ambiguous. Or one trick contradicts the other. I guess you could say I always try to read ‘eunuch.’ “
    She laughed at her joke at my expense and went on. “Your lady’s readings are, in fact, the first time I’ve ever had two unequivocal readings both say ‘boy.’ And part of that was Safiye, pushing me for a definite answer. Usually I try on purpose to leave some doubt or push the answer towards a girl child in one or both cases. That way the mother can always be pleasantly surprised.
    “Though why,” the Quince concluded, “I can’t say.” She passed her hand lovingly over the swollen belly of her angelica jar; angelica, to promote women’s courses. “I’ve always been much more partial to females myself.”
    After this conversation with the midwife, I was completely at ease to have her in our house. I might have accepted Italy’s birthing-demons if I’d stayed in my homeland the rest of my life, never knowing any others. But I was much more skeptical when confronted with a new, different, conflicting demonology. The Quince’s unsentimental dashing of my secretly held hopes strengthened rather than diminished my trust in her. I liked her hard, no-nonsense view of the world and, while trusting souls to her might cause scruple, I had no problem about bodies, either my lady’s or my unborn little master’s.
    It seemed clear that the sense of threat I’d gotten from her came rather from Safiye. And now that Baffo’s daughter was farsakh upon farsakh away—whether by land or by sea made no difference to those who stayed behind—the threat was gone, too.
    ***
    From the first twinge of life she felt inside her, my lady loved that child of hers with a love women dream to find in husbands; later, thwarted there, in lovers, and most are lucky if they are content to find it in fairy tales. It was a passion that did not consume, or turn the possessor inward, but gave her a quiet, joyful strength and compassion for those in the rest of the world who were not blessed as she. So Esmikhan would not allow me to take the mirth in the episode of Safiye and the leaky ship I would have.
    My lady’s joy and strength were like a sore thumb that seemed to catch on everything, and she took great, cautious steps to avoid injuring the weaknesses of others.
    Her new, sublime compassion fell short of Madonna quality in this, however: it did not prove to be immortal.
    Her babe, a boy, though he gave a healthy yell when he entered the world that midsummer, left it again within the hour.
    At first I took comfort with the thought, Time will heal this. She is young. She is not the first mother to lose a child. With time, she will conceive again.
    But instead, that time extended into a hellish eternity for Esmikhan Sultan, who conceived, bore, and then immediately lost another small son.
    I knew nothing of birthing rooms. I only saw the tiny white bundles hastened off to the graveyard with hardly a wink from religious authority. I saw the Quince’s hard, grim look—in want of baking and sugar I thought. And I heard—helplessly—Esmikhan’s grief. My lady, though always patient and submissive to the will of Allah, could not come through this tragedy unmarked.
    During this time, I almost came to believe in the malicious old jinn-hag who was said to haunt birthing rooms seeking to steal infants or their mothers. I heard some of the women speaking of this witch in hushed tones. And though Esmikhan wouldn’t let the hag’s name pass her lips at any time lest she call the jinni to her thereby, I could tell by her fearful glances to