Harem (15 page)

The Eski Saraya

The first time she came her she had been aghast. She had never been naked anywhere except in her own private bath and even then she had felt sinful for not wearing clothes. But here, in this heathen palace, the women barely wore anything in the summer, even to eat.

When she arrived they took away her clothes, forced her to bathe and afterwards undergo the most humiliating operation any Christian woman might be subjected to. They shaved her completely - under her arms, her legs and then … even now, she cringed when she thought about it. There were no words. They had outraged her utterly and she knew that even if she did somehow find her way back to La Serenissima she would never be able to look her husband - or any Christian soul - in the face again.

She had been defiled.

The ritual of the baths renewed her agony daily. She was made to undress in front of strangers, bathe with them and then subject herself yet again to the attentions of black women. She tried to avoid eye contact with anyone, ignored the whispered taunts made behind her back, though she soon understand them well enough. In just a few weeks she had picked up a great deal of the language. It was a challenge for her and she had nothing else to do.

She removed her bath chemise and slipped into the water. Two other girls - one an Egyptian with a hawk nose and skin the colour of hazelnuts, the other alabaster-white with startling blue black hair - sat on the edge of the bath and examined each other for hair. The search became intimate and Julia knew she should turn away. But she continued to stare.

The Egyptian parted the other's legs, quite casually, and with her fingers traced the lips of her
kouss
and parted them gently. The white girl gasped and whispered what sounded like an endearment. She realized she was not grooming her after all; this was something quite different. Wait, her finger was inside her now.

Corpo di Dio
! Another outrage! The girls heard her gasp and the Egyptian gave her a mocking smile. Her lover - for that was what she must be - had thrown back her head and her long, braided her brushed the water. She groaned and lifted her buttocks from the marble, her eyes closed, utterly without shame.

Julia got as far away from them as she could. She felt as if her cheeks were on fire. She splashed some water on them to cool them. She heard someone move towards her through the water and hoped it was not the Egyptian, come to taunt her more. Instead she found herself staring into the blackest eyes she had ever seen.

'You are the
Gaiour
,' the woman said.

She nodded.
Gaiour
, she had learned, meant Christian.

'Don't be frightened. It must all be strange to you now but you'll get used to it.'

It was the first kindness she had found since she had come here and she wanted to weep. 'What are they doing?' she whispered.

'They are just bored and they are helping each other take away the hunger, that's all. There is no man to do it for them. Besides, some say that a woman can do it better anyway.'

Julia looked up at the Nubian guards and wondered why they just watched and did not try to join in. And what was it that a woman could do better than a man? But she said nothing. She felt so stupid here, like a child.

'What is your name?' the girl asked her.

'Julia.'

'I am Sirhane. I am from Syria. My father gave me to the
devshirme
.'

'
Devshirme
?' So far she had understood most of what Sirhane had said, but this was a new word.

'It is like a tax, only instead of money you pay it with young men or women. The Sultan's men travel the empire taking the best boys and girls for royal service.'

'So you are a prisoner, too?'

'Prisoner? A woman is always a prisoner, isn't she? I'm glad my father gave me up, I prefer my life here. Do you know what I would be doing if I was not lying here in this bath? Picking cotton in a field! Ask me where I would rather be.'

'Do all of these women belong to the Sultan then? Are they all his wives?'

'Of course not! He has only two wives - we call them
kadins
- and one of them is far away in a place called Manisa. That just leaves Hürrem, but she is not young anymore, so that leaves hope for the rest of us.'

'I do not understand. Speak slower, please.'

Sirhane smiled and edged closer. To Julia's horror she put her arm around her. 'You will need someone to take care of you in here. You don't know anything, do you
Gaiour
?'

Julia could not move; there was a naked Muslim woman with her arm around her in a warm bath. This was sin beyond measure, beyond imagination. So how could there be such comfort in it?

Perhaps because at last she had found a friend. She put her head on Sirhane's shoulder and the Syrian embraced her and held her as she wept. Julia thought about her Confessor in the Chiese Santa Maria dei Miracoli and wondered what he would say if he saw her now. She was slipping further from Venice and further from God. 'I just want to go home,' she said.

'You have a husband?'

'Yes.'

'Was he good to you?'

She shook her head. 'He's an old man. He was old when I married him.'

'Then why weep for him, Julia? Perhaps, if kismet is kind, you will find yourself a much better husband. The best husband in the world - Sultan Suleiman, the Lord of Life!'

***

The Kislar Aghasi leaned against the lattice window that overlooked the
hammam
, closed his eyes and groaned aloud. What kind of cruel joke was this? What devil in all the hells could have devised a torture more exquisite than to take from a man all means of loving a woman but leave him the desire, as fierce as it was when he was complete? If he was not so weak he would have ended his life long ago.

Any man in the world would envy me for the view I have here; every day I see hundreds of the most beautiful women in the world, and all of them naked, or nearly so. They glide in and out of my vision through the misty
hararet
like it is all just a dream; or they sprawl on warmed marble sofas and braid each other's hair. The most lurid fantasy of the lowest debauch is my daily fare and yet these women remain utterly unattainable.

Light poured in brilliant tendrils from the small rounded windows high in the cupola and one picked out Julia's milky silhouette. His fingers curled around the iron lattice as if he would wrench it from the wall.

He would rather be dead than this.

***

Suleiman held the flickering candle above the crib. The infant looked so scrawny and so pale. He reached out a tentative finger and stroked the suckling's back, recoiled form the grotesque lump on his spine. He looked like a skinned quail and scarce bigger.

Hürrem watched him. She was surprised; he had never paid any attention to their other children when they were in the cradle. Yet every day he came to stare at the grotesque and deformed son she had delivered him.

'He eats?' he asked her.

'His wet nurse says he has little appetite. She does not think he will survive.'

'You must pick him up every day and croon to him. It will help.'

'Yes, my Lord.' I shall do no such thing, she thought. She wanted nothing to do with the little monster. Birthing him had almost killed her.

Suleiman handed the wet nurse a gold coin. 'Look after him well,' he said and led Hürrem from the chamber.

When they were alone she helped him remove his turban and brought his head to her breast. He was unusually quiet.

'My Lord is troubled?'

'Matters of the Divan, russelana.'

'You wish to talk?'

Suleiman sighed. 'It is spring. Every spring my Agas press me for another campaign. This year they wish to go north again, against Vienna.'

'And what does Ibrahim say?'

'Ibrahim clamours louder than any of them.'

'He longs for glory. For Islam, of course. Yet I wonder if it wise.'

'Tell me your thoughts.'

'It is a long road to Vienna. Perhaps too far to take an army, even the army of the Osmanlis. If one goes through a door one must be sure one can get out again.'

'The real prize is not Vienna, it is Frederick.'

'He will not come out to fight you! Why should he risk everything in a battle against the greatest army in the world? He will quit Vienna when you approach and when you withdraw for the winter he will come and take the city back again and everything will be as it was before. You will have nothing to show for it but a long trek through the mud.'

'I cannot hold the leash on the
Yeniçeris
for another year.'

'The Persians have been raiding the eastern borders and murdering our mufti. Send them to Asia if they want a fight so badly. We could serve God by preserving his judges from the heretics.'

'The Persians are just flies nipping at the rump of a lion. We only have to swat our tail to remove them.'

'Perhaps God wishes us to be his swatter of flies even though there is little glory in it.'

Suleiman laughed. 'What I would not give to put you into a debate with Ibrahim!'

Hürrem stroked his forehead, felt the tiny pulse of blood at his temple. This is all I have, she thought. When this pulsing stops, life will stop for me as well, unless I can find a way to rid myself of the curse of this Mustapha.

'Do not go, my Lord. Let Ibrahim shoulder the burden and chase Frederick through the Austrian mud if that is what he wants.'

'Impossible. If the army goes into battle I must be at their head. It is the way, the
Yeniçeris
expect it.'

'Do you love war so much?'

'You know I do not.'

'Then why?'

'It is my duty, Hürrem.'

'Duty has made the king of kings a slave then!'

Suleiman sat up, face flushed with anger. 'Enough!'

Hürrem bit her lip, contrite. She cursed her own impetuosity. She should know better than to make him angry. A wasp was trapped with honey, not vinegar. 'My Lord, I did not mean to offend you.'

'The place of the Sultan of the Osmanlis is with his army. They cannot go to war without him. It is our way.'

She cradled his face in both her hands. 'Forgive me. It is just that I love you so much, my Lord. The summers are endless without you. And I am so afraid that one winter you will not return …'

Suleiman stroked her face; then his fingers traced the line of her throat to her breast. 'Enough of politics,' he whispered. 'We will talk of this another time.'

She put her arms around his neck and smiled. 'Three times in one day! You are truly a lion, my Lord!'

She drew her to him. Oh fortunate son of Selim! Tomorrow perhaps he would decide where he would take his army. Tonight he would take his might against a better yielding adversary.

The girls of the Harem were housed in a long dormitory next to a stone courtyard. The mattresses were kept in wall cupboards during the day and unrolled onto raised platforms at night. Only the
iqbals
had their own apartments.

Julia lay on her mattress in the darkness and tried to force the memories of the day from her mind. After everything that had happened to her in this place she felt little better than a beast. It was not that they had enslaved her to one man; her father had done that, also, in his way. But she had expected her slavery to be a private thing, that even if she were to become just one of many wives they would at least not parade her naked before other men.

She lay awake through the night, too bruised in her soul to sleep. Even God was no help to her in this infernal place.

Pera

The quarter where the Venetian ambassador - the
bailo
- and the rest of the Venetian traders lived and built their palaces overlooked the Horn, looking directly south towards the city and the Topkapi Saraya. The suburb was known, with the humility typical of the Golden Lion, as the
Comunità Magnifica
.

Ludovici had built his own residence in the quarter. It had a marble terrace that faced onto the water and from there he could watch his own ships sail past Seraglio Point into the Marmara Deniz, loaded down with Turkish grain, Nubian slaves, Arab horses and Oriental spices.

He had done well by himself coming here. Being a
bastardo
the Venetian court was closed to him, so while his peers had donned the black robes of
togato
, he took himself to Pera, the foreign colony at Stamboul, and established himself as a merchant. Feeling no special allegiance to either his hosts or his former countrymen he had quickly learned to manipulate both to his advantage.

His father had assisted him, of course. Senator Gambetto appreciated Ludovici's decision not to remain in Venice where his presence among the merchant community might have caused him embarrassment. It was Gambetto's zecchini that founded the business; but it was Ludovici's acumen that expanded it.

At first it was difficult. The spice and pepper trades were dominated by the great merchant families of Venice and Genoa. He could not compete. He soon realised that greater profits were to made from smuggling wheat.

Suleiman had placed restrictions on the export of Turkish grain with a rigorous price-fixing policy. But a resourceful man could find a way around such regulations if he had daring and a little imagination. He chartered a fleet of Greek merchantmen to pick up wheat from Black Sea ports and ferry it to the Venetian colonies at Crete and Corfu. Avoiding the Turkish harbor patrols in the Bosphorus was simply a matter of knowing which palm to grease in the Topkapi palace.

The
Comunità Magnifica
regarded his success with a sort of benign contempt. He did not really care what they thought of him. He could do business here without their patronage. Lately he had become more Turkish than Italian and had even acquired a small harem.

And so tonight he sipped his Cyprian wine, well satisfied with the course his life had taken. He had money, he had a fine residence on the water and he had women. He was content.

The only thing he really missed was his friend. Not a day passed he did not think about Abbas and wondered what had become of him. His recklessness had been part of his charm; it had also been the end of him.

One of his eunuchs - the poor wretch had been razored in a slave camp on the Nile, but then it was next to impossible to find any young buck here who had not been put to the knife - appeared on the terrace. His name was Hyacinth - all these fellows adopted the names of flowers - and he was typical; obese and beardless with a tremolo voice.

'There is someone to see you, Excellency.'

'Who is it?'

'He said to say he is an old friend of yours.'

'What's wrong, Hyacinth. You look puzzled about something. Who is this fellow? Did he give a name?'

Hyacinth shook his head. Someone newly arrived from Venice, Ludovic supposed. More condescension to endure. Oh well. 'Show him in,' Ludovici sighed.

He was expecting some young
togato
fresh off the boat from La Serennisima, an old acquaintance from university; he was unprepared for the devilish apparition that presented itself on the terrace a few moments later. The man was wearing a black silk
ferijde
, and its hood covered his face. He was wearing soft leather boots; not a Venetian then. And he had no old friends among the Turks. What was this?

Ludovici got up, alarmed. 'Who are you?'

The man pulled back his hood. It was difficult to tell if he was Moor or Nubian as his face had been so disfigured by the scar that slanted across his nose and right eye. He was also hideously fat, like Hyacinth. He wore a great sugarloaf turban, in the courtly style.

'Hello Ludovici,' he said.

'Do we know each other?' he said, wondering at how this man might presume to address him by his Christian name when he was so obviously a slave.

'I am the Kislar Aghasi of the Sultan Suleiman.'

The Kislar Aghasi! The Custodian of Felicity - Captain of the Sultan's Girls, and one of the most powerful creatures in the Harem. Ludovici was too surprised to speak.

'Don't you recognize me?'

'How should I recognize you? We have never met.'

'Look more closely. I know I have changed greatly since we last sawe each other but think back, if you will, about the warning you gave to a young friend of yours outside the Chiese Santa Maria dei Miracoli. Looking back on it now, it seems like good advice, I think.'

Ludovici stared at him then slumped down onto the divan, speechless.

'Corpo di Dio,
' he murmured at last. 'Abbas!'

Suleiman reined in his Arab and watched the goshawk floating on the air currents at its pitch, waiting for its prey. Ibrahim walked his stallion through the long grass to flush out their quarry. The hawk twitched its wings, and hovered.

Then its golden eye found its target. Seeing it scamper from Ibrahim's approach far below, it tucked in its wings and swooped, its razor-sharp pounces into the hare's back. The hare kicked and then was still. The bird beat its wings and then settled on its kill. There was a scarlet blossoming on the white fur clutched between its talons.

His pages ran forward to collect their game.

When it was done Ibrahim returned, grinning, the hawk held aloft on his gloved left arm. It was hooded now in its leather rufter. Behind him the pages carried their day's trophies; a dozen hares and rabbits, strung from poles, and a brace of pheasant. She was an efficient killer this bird. It had always struck Suleiman as curious that the female hawks were better at this deadly game than the males. All the falconers preferred them for hunting.

'A fine day's sport, my Lord.'

'The sun is low, Ibrahim. We should return to the
caïque
.'

'It has been a long time since we hunted together like this.'

'There should be many days like today this summer.'

Ibrahim's smile fell away. 'I should like that also but the Divan has recommended another campaign against Frederick's brother, Charles.'

'You did not agree to this? Because if memory serves two years ago, on your advice, we besieged Vienna. Frederick did not come then, and nor did his brother. What good will it do to go after them again? They will not fight us.'

'We were stopped then by the unseasonal rains. If we had been able to bring our cannons to the walls-'

'If we take Vienna, how do we keep it? If one goes through a door one must be sure one can get out again.'

'But we must go back to the Lands of War. It is our duty to Islam.'

'Ah yes. I forgot what a good Muslim you are Ibrahim.'

Ibrahim bridled at this jibe. 'We cannot leave the
Yeniçeris
inside the city for another summer. They grow impatient for battle.'

'Perhaps we should look in another direction.'

'Shah Tamasp?'

'He is trying to infect our eastern borders with his Shi'a heresy and he is still killing our mufti. He should be taught a lesson.'

'He is nothing. We could crush him at our leisure.'

'Glory is not always the same as duty. Sometimes we serve Islam better by crushing vermin that riding in futile quests against Emperors.'

'Frederick's brother is the Holy Roman Emperor, the avowed enemy of our faith. What greater duty is there than to defeat him?'

'But if we take Vienna and he and his brother do not stay there to fight, what have we gained for God? A distant outpost that Frederick will retake as soon as we withdraw. The destruction of Tamasp should be our more immediate goal.'

The goshawk on Ibrahim's wrist grew restless. She batted her wings and Ibrahim cooed softly to gentle her. 'If we take Vienna, Rome is at our mercy. Should we threaten the Green Apple, we will flush out the Emperor then.'

Suleiman fell silent. The scent of the pines lay heavy on the dusk. The pine needles formed a soft blanket beneath the horses' hoofs. Between the trees the Bosphorus was silver and pink behind the silhouette of the royal barge. 'Well then you should decide this, Ibrahim, for it is you who shall lead them.'

'No, Ibrahim. I shall not go with you this time. You will lead my armies. There is too much to do in Stamboul so I have decided to remain here.'

Ibrahim was too stunned to speak.

'Speak up,' Suleiman said finally.

'You cannot do this,' Ibrahim said.

'Cannot?' Suleiman stopped and Ibrahim reined in beside him. 'Who says to me 'cannot'? Am I not the Sultan? Am I not King of Kings? The King of Kings, then, shall do as he pleases!'

'Your place is at the head of your armies.'

'My place is wherever I choose to be.'

'The soldiers take their inspiration from you. If you are not there-'

'They are my soldiers and they will do as I command.'

'No Sultan has ever-'

'A Sultan makes tradition, he is not slave to it.'

'You will lose their faith!'

Suleiman leaned across the saddle so that his face was inches from his Vizier's. 'Ibrahim, you are my friend and my counsellor. Please. I have had enough of war, take this burden from me. They just want blood so let them wallow in it. It does not matter whose blood it is, not to them. But I do not wish for another campaign.'

'You must not contemplate this!'

'I have made up my mind.' He put his hand on his friend's shoulder. 'I trust you like I would trust no other. You are my brother. Do this for me.'

He rode ahead through the trees. Ibrahim stared after him. Oh great God, he thought, he really means it.

Even his voice has changed, Ludovici thought. The colour of his skin, too. It was paler, and sickly looking. He was no longer handsome - far from it! - and the light had gone out of his eyes. It was Abbas and yet it was not.

Abbas stared at the sparkling waters of the Horn. 'I should have listened to you, Ludovici. You tried to warn me.'

'I never knew what happened to you. No one did. Though it was not hard to guess. I assumed you were dead. As you say, I did try and warn you.'

'What about my father?'

'Gonzaga brought charges of drunkenness against him a short while later. The
Consiglio
dismissed him as Captain-General. I think he is soldiering in Naples now.' Ludovici felt sick to his stomach. Better you had died, old friend. 'I always hoped that perhaps you had just run away.'

'As a wiser man would have done.'

'I should have -'

'What? There is nothing you could have done.'

'It was Gonzaga, wasn't it?'

He took a very long time to answer. Finally: 'Do you remember giving me a letter? Lucia had handed it to you, she told you it was from Julia. But it wasn't, it was from Gonzaga. It was how he baited the trap. The letter said I should meet her on the Ponte Antico. Instead I made my rendezvous with four gentlemen he had hired on the waterfront. I fought them but there were too many of them.

They razored me Ludovici, right there in the bilge in the galleot. They thought I would die, I think. But somehow I survived and every day since I have wished I had not. I was sold in the slave market here in Stamboul and taken into the royal Harem to be trained as a page. The old Kislar Aghasi took a liking to me, he could see I had more learning than the rest of the poor wretches they sold on the blocks, I could speak Turkish and Arabic as well as Italian. He groomed me for better things, if you can call it that. So I learned my tasks well and when the old Kislar Aghasi died the Sultan's mother appointed me in his place.' He stopped and hung his head in his hands. Ludovici wanted to reach out and console him but found, to his eternal shame, that he could not do it. 'I have wished for death often of course but if it is not your time you cannot make it happen unless you take a dagger to your own veins and make sure the job is done right. It is not easy to die, at least not for one like me. ' Abbas composed himself. 'They have made a ghost of me, Ludovici. A ghost who walks and talks and breathes, but a ghost just the same.'

Ludovici did not know what to say to him. 'Why did you not come here before?' he managed finally.

He laughed, with no humour. 'We both know the answer to that.'

'Then why did you come today?'

'Because I need your help.'

'Name it. Anything.'

'Do not be so quick to offer favours to a stranger, Ludovici.'

'You are no stranger to me.'

'But I am.'

Ludovici finally gathered the courage to touch this monster that once was his friend. 'Abbas, I will never deny you.'

'Ludovic you really don't understand. You can't.' His fingers strayed to his cheek where the dagger had sliced him five years - was it just five years? - before. 'It doesn't stop afterwards. You still want women. I thought the longing would go away.'

'Just tell me what you want me to do.'

'I thought I should never see her again, you see. But she is here, in Stamboul.'

'Who?' Ludovici shook his head in astonishment. 'Not her? Not Julia Gonzaga?' Impossible. If she had come to the
Comunità Magnifica
he would have heard of it.

'She is a slave in the Harem. She was captured by corsairs a few months ago. I have seen her, Ludovici, I have seen her with my own eyes. She is as lovely as ever.'