Harem (17 page)

The Eski Saraya

They had given her to the Mistress of the Robes; she had proven her skill with fine needlework - God alone knew she had had enough practice over the years - and the
Kiaya
had professed herself well pleased with her.

He found her hunched over a satin robe that was intended for young Bayezid, working a pattern into the cloth with gold thread. When she saw him she dropped to her knees to make the proper sala'am, but he stopped her.

'Just sit down,' he said.

Julia did as she was told.

'Look at me,' he said.

She raised her eyes and he saw her wince. The scar is not pretty especially in good light, close up. It would have been better if the dagger had taken his eye out completely than leave just the white of it staring at the world like this. He waited for some dawning of recognition but there was none.

'Do you know who I am?'

'You are the Kislar Aghasi.'

'Yes, the Kislar Aghasi. Your well being is my responsibility from this moment on. Do you understand?'

Julia nodded.

'Do they look after you in here?'

'The
Kiaya
is very kind to me.'

Abbas nodded; better than the last one by all accounts, and more fortunate, too. Apparently Hürrem had ordered that the foot that had kicked her be lopped off by the
bostanji-bashi
and then had her exiled to Diyarbakir.

'You have learned much of the language already. That is very good.'

'I have an ear for it.'

'You are clever then, as well as beautiful.' But I always knew that, he thought. What would you do, I wonder, if I spoke to you in Italian, told you that you are still the most beautiful woman in the world, even though I spend all my days surrounded by beauty? 'You are a
Gaiour
, a Christian?'

'I am.'

'It will not help you here. No one will force you to give up your religion but you will rise faster if you learn your Qu'ran. They have given you a holy book?'

'I cannot read it. It is in Arabic.'

'Then you must learn to read Arabic.' He lowered his voice and said more gently. 'You must forget about Venice. That world is gone now. You can never go back there.'

'I know.'

He searched for something else to say. He understood how it must feel to be a ghost, to see the physical world and be unable to join it. She does not know me anymore and what difference would it make if she did? I don't want her pity, I could not stand that. And what else might she feel for me, after all this time and after what they have done to me? 'If you need for anything, let me know.'

She bowed her head. He hesitated. Once I waited a week just for the moment when you drew back the veil that covered your face, he thought. Now I see you naked every day, I watch you from my lattice window high above the
hammam
and I still burn for you. Dear God, how I burn!

I am ashamed for spying on you but there is no offense, for the only hurt I cause is to myself. I admire you now as a man might admire a great work of art. No sculptor could ever have carved anything as perfect as you.

Oh sweet Jesus, have pity. How can I live like this?

'My Lord?'

He realized he had groaned aloud.

'Is something wrong?'

'It is nothing.' He turned and left the room. He made his way slowly through the darkened cloisters of the Harem to the tiny cell that was now his home. He sat down on his cot, hung his head and wept.

***

The Marmara Sea looked like rose-tinted glass, the gray humps of islands breaking the surface like spouting whales. Below the Valide's window, new fruit had bowed the branches of a cherry tree. She still loved the view from here, though she had seen it every day for most of her life.

Behind her three small boys in skull-caps and baggy trousers scuffed the marble floor with their soft slipper boots, impatient for the audience to be over.

'So have you boys been working hard at your studies?'

Bayezid and Mehmet looked at their older brother and waited for him to speak for them but he just sniffed and stared at the floor. So Bayezid took up the responsibility. 'Yes, Grandmother,' he said.

She studied them in turn; Bayezid and Mehmet were both fine looking boys, she thought, they had their father's long limbs and lean good looks. But I am not sure about Selim. When did he get to be so chubby? And why does he let his younger brother answer for them? He is eight years old, time he had a tongue in his head.

'Do you learn your Qu'ran, Selim?'

'Our tutor beats us,' he mumbled.

'Why does he beat you? Are you lazy?'

'I don't know.'

The Valide picked up a silver salver from the table in front of her, arranged with her favourite sweet, rahat locum. Her pastry cooks prepared it fresh for her every day using the pulp form white grapes mixed with semolina, flour, rosewater, apricot kernels and wild honey. She selected a piece and popped it into her mouth.

'Would you like a piece, children?'

The boys came forward eagerly. Bayezid and Mehmet, she noticed, took one piece each, Selim took three.

She wondered what the future held in store for them. None of them would ever grow to be as fine a prince as Mustapha, but if anything should happen to him …

'Tell me what you have learned at the Enderun.'

'I can throw a javelin from the back of a horse!' Bayezid shouted.

'But you are only six years old!'

'And hit a target with an arrow!'

'What about your Qu'ran?'

Bayezid lowered his eyes again. He nudged Mehmet, who, without looking up, recited ten verses from the first
sura
of the holy book. The Valide clapped her hands in appreciation and Mehmet flushed to the roots of his hair.

'And what about you, Selim? What have you learned?'

He shrugged and said nothing.

'Come now, Selim. You are three years older than Mehmet. Recite the first
sura
for me. You must be able to do that by now.'

Selim mumbled his way through five verses and then stopped.

'Well, go on.'

'I can't remember any more, grandmother.'

She frowned, was about to coax him, then changed her mind. What a stupid little boy. 'No wonder your tutor beats you,' she said, 'at your age Mustapha could recite the first chapter without taking breath!' She sighed. 'I am tired, I need to rest for a while, come and kiss your grandmother, boys, then be off with you.'

Bayezid and Mehmet dutifully kissed her. Selim was the last, his lips barely brushed her cheek, and as he left she saw him scoop up another piece of
rahat lokum
and hide it in his robe. She almost called him back to reprimand him but then changed her mind. What was the point? He was greedy and stupid and God had seen fit to make him that way.

She went back to the window and watched them playing in the courtyard below. Selim showed his two little brothers the sweetmeats he had stolen and when they threw out their hands for a share he laughed and stuffed all the pieces in his own mouth at once.

Praise God there was Mustapha.

***

There is a currency in the Hall of Kings, Rüstem thought, and it is not jewels or gold. Money of itself has no value, he thought; the only thing that can be traded for power and for life is information.

Which was why the Kislar Aghasi was worth to him more than his own substantial weight in gold.

Abbas visited the Treasury once a week and was always ushered into his the defterdar's office without being made to wait, as most others were. While he drank Rüstem's
chai
and ate his
halwa
, he gave him all the news from the Harem. Today it was the usual thing; Hürrem was making the lives of the servant girl and the other
houris
a misery.

'And the Valide?' Rüstem asked him.

'She sickens. The physician sends her potions but they do little good.'

'May God protect her,' Rüstem said.

'She is in all our prayers,' the Kislar Aghasi said with little enthusiasm.

Rüstem tapped a finger on the arm of his chair. 'I have a crumb for you to peck at.'

'What is it you wish to know?'

'It is not something I wish to know this time. It is something I wish to tell. You have heard the war drum beating?'

'The blacksmiths in Galata keep their foundries burning day and night. Do we make war on Frederick again?'

'We shall. But this time the campaign will go a little differently.'

'How so?'

'This time the Grand Vizier will lead the army.'

'Of course. Who else would be Seraskier?'

'Indeed, no one could replace me, thanks be to God. Especially when the Sultan himself will remain behind, here in the palace.'

Abbas cocked his head. 'This is true?'

'Another crumb for you. It was the Lady Hürrem who persuaded him to abandon his duties in the Lands of War. She means to sing and dance for him while his
Yeniçeris
bleed and die for Islam at the Gates of Vienna.'

'He must be mad!'

'Something very like it.' Rüstem yawned. 'Soon the whole palace will know of it, Kislar Aghasi. But the Sultan Valide will remember you kindly if you tell her of it first.' And then perhaps she will stand up to that poisonous little witch, Ibrahim thought. Pray God she does for who knows what will happen when she is gone, for she is the only one who holds sway with him now.

The Eski Saraya

A gray mist of cloud obscured the neck of the Bosphorus. The branch of a honeysuckle scuffed against the window as an unseasonal chill ruffled the water of the Golden Horn. Just the day before the sun was shining. How quickly all life can change.

Almost ten years I have been in this prison, Hürrem thought. Somewhere beyond those clouds the wind is bending the long grass into banners of green and stirs the manes on the horses and hums through the nomad tents.

Ten years a prisoner.

She watched her nightingale sing in its lacquered cage. On impulse she snatched it down and carried it out to the terrace. She opened the tiny door.

The bird hesitated, cocking its head to the side, alert for danger. It hopped to the floor of the cage then back to its perch, startled and unsure.

'You've been in this cage too long, haven't you?' she said. 'You wouldn't know how to survive outside now. That's what you're thinking. It's the only world you know, isn't it?'

She closed the door and put the cage back on its hook.

The steppes, the wind, the waving grass; they were far beyond her reach now. They might as well be on the moon.

Damn them, damn all men.

***

Two odalisques were soaping each other's bodies, fondling each other without any self consciousness at all; here two other girls were perched on the edge of a marble sofa examined each other intimately for hairs; others sat alone, naked or weary nothing but their gauzy bath chemises and cleaning their teeth with pumice, picking their noses or scratching without inhibition at their most private places.

Julia did not spare any of them a second glance. When had it all ceased to shock her? She no longer even remembered that it once had.

She found Sirhane lying on a bench of warmed marble, a
gediçli
massaging her with scented oil. Julia sent the slave scurrying from the room with just a glance.

She poured some of the warm oil onto her own hands and smoothed it gently across the Syrian's textured skin. Sirhane felt the difference in her touch immediately and opened her eyes, startled. 'Julia?'

'I came to tell you I was sorry.'

Sirhane rolled onto her side. 'No, it is I who should be sorry. I was impetuous.'

'I do not want to lose you as my friend.'

'More than a friend,' Sirhane said. 'I love you, Julia.'

Love: I suppose it is, Julia thought, though I had never imagined it with another woman. But until she shocked me with that kiss I looked forward to spending every moment I could with her. Is that love, then?

Sirhane ran her fingers through Julia's braids and pulled her face towards her. 'Do it again,' Julia breathed.

Sirhane kissed her. Her lips tasted of sherbet and fruit. Her skin was slippery and hot.

'What should I do?' Julia said.

Sirhane took her hand and put it between her legs, crushing her hand against the smooth mound. She closed her eyes. 'Put your mouth there,' she whispered.

Julia gasped. My mouth? No! The idea astonished her. Yet Sirhane had such pleading in her eyes; if I don't do this, Julia thought, she will shun me forever. She's the only friend I have here.

She took a deep breath and kissed Sirhane's belly and then the crease of her groin. The Syrian uttered a tiny sob and her body quivered.

I can't do this, Julia thought. Her Confessor appeared through the steam, in the long vestments of penance, a Bible clutched in his right hand. Her father stood behind him in the red gown of a
Consigliotore
. Do this and you are damned for all time, he said.

Sirhane opened her legs wider, her heels slipping on the wet tiles.

'You will be cast into a fiery pit,' her Confessor said, 'and whipped with metal-tipped rods and boiling pitch will be poured into the wounds. Demons will roast you over a slow fire and there will be no escape from the torment …'

'You are worse than a beast,' her father said. 'Your name will be a byword for shame and depravity all through La Serenissima …'

'Please,' Sirhane whispered. She was panting so hard Julia could see the outline of her ribs through her skin. 'Please.'

She arched her back, her fingers entwined in Julia's braids, pushing her down. Julia banished her Confessor, made herself deaf to her father's howls of outrage.

I will do this for you, Sirhane.

She touched her
kouss
with her lips, just a tentative brush of her lips. Sirhane wriggled and moaned. She found to her surprise that there was no taste to her, just a warm fragrant musk and silkiness. 'Use your tongue,' Sirhane begged her. 'Please, please, please …'

Julia stared at her. Could this really give so much pleasure? Was her touch really so unbearably sweet? Sirhane wriggled towards her until her legs hung over the edge of the marble. Julia lowered her head again, the pink tip of her tongue extended. She was timid at first, thinking someone must see them and stop them. But no one entered their cubicle and the steam of the
hararet
made a natural curtain.

Julia lowered her head again. Sirhane clawed at her back with her nails and moaned at the slightest touch. Suddenly her father and her Confessor were left far behind as Julia plunged into this strange new world of pleasure and moans, mesmerized by her own wickedness and new-found power. Unlike her old world this new prison had an endless vista that was yet to be charted and explored.