Harem (2 page)

The room was as he had remembered it. For the first time since he had entered Stamboul in triumph three days before, Suleiman felt that he had come home. He threw himself on the wall couch. As he flung aside his silk turban he tossed aside that other self, the Sultan of the Osmanlis. He ran a hand across his smooth, shaved skull to the scalplock at the crown.

Ever since he inherited the throne from his father three years before, he had the feeling of looking out at the world from a darkened room and watching himself, like an actor in a shadow play. He thought the feeling would pass as he grew accustomed to his new role, but instead it grew stronger. Even in his diaries he referred to himself in the third person.

He sighed. They called the Grand Vizier the 'bearer of the burden.' But the Grand Vizier was only a juggler, a balancing act of flattery, mathematics and duplicity. It was the Sultan who truly carried the load; the great weight of expectation, not only of the six million Turks that he ruled, but of Islam itself.

But here, in the silence of the Harem, there was respite; scented wood burned in the tall copper hearth; firelight rippled on the tiled walls; silver incense burners smouldered, chasing away the bloody ghosts of Rhodes. There were no viziers, generals, responsibilities.

And there was Gülbehar.

He heard the rustle of fabric as she entered through a rose damask curtain at the far end of the room. Her hair was tied in a single long braid down her back. She wore a chemise - a
gömlek
- of sheer sky-blue silk and two diamond buttons danced against her flesh. Her waistcoat was of blue Bursa brocade, her pantaloons a white waterfall of silk. She is like sunlight rippling on the water, he thought.

Gülbehar, Rose of Spring. What a perfect name they gave you.

She fell on her knees and touched her forehead to the carpet. 'Sala'am, Lord of my Life. Sultan of Sultans, Lord of the World. King of Kings.'

He motioned to her, impatiently. How many times had he told her there was no need? But she always greeted him this same way, keeping to the ancient formula. But he did not wish to be reminded of his role in the world. He was a man come home; that was all he wanted.

'Come here.'

She ran the last few steps and buried her face in his neck. He felt the wetness of her tears on his cheek and the scent of dried jasmine from her hair.

'When there was snow on the minarets and still you had not returned I thought you were never coming back. I was so frightened without you. There are so many whispers.' She pulled away from him and stared into his face. 'You were not hurt?'

'No scars that will ever show. How is little Mustapha?'

'He has missed you. He talks of you often.'

'Let me see him.'

Gülbehar took his hand and led him through the apartments to the prince's bedchamber. A candle burned in a long golden candlestick at one corner of the bed, attended by a turbaned page. Another stood waiting in the shadows. Whenever the boy turned in his sleep the candle on that side would be extinguished and another lit on the other side.

Suleiman leaned over the mattress. Mustapha had fair hair like his mother, and the same serene features. He was nine years old now, growing tall, as skilled at throwing a javelin as he was at learning the Qur'an and reading mathematics. The next Osmanli Sultan, Suleiman thought. Enjoy your youth while you can. It is good you are growing broad shoulders.

Such irony that his son looked so little like him, even less like one of the Turks he would one day rule. But every Sultan's wife was a slave and an infidel, since the Qur'an decreed that no Muslim could be sold into slavery. So every Sultan was the son of a slave yet divinely chosen as the Protector of the Great Faith. God's web was indeed a large one.

'He is well?'

'Sturdy and strong. He wishes to be like his father.'

He stroked a lock of hair from his son's forehead. 'Bless you little Mustapha,' he said. He turned to Gülbehar. Her silhouette was outlined against the candle flame. Desire was like a physical blow. He wanted to have her now, pour his seed into her, like a flood, like a river. But that would not do.

Instead he said: 'We should eat now.'

Gülbehar brought the food herself; tiny squares of lamb cooked in aromatic herbs, pieces of chicken baked over a slow fire, eggplants stuffed with rice. Afterwards there were figs in sour cream and sherbet from a cold gold goblet. Silent pages refilled their cups and bowls.

'What is the talk around the Harem?' Suleiman asked her. It always amused him to hear the gossip.

'They talk of you as a great hero,' Gülbehar said. 'When the news came that you had conquered Rhodes, everyone said you would be remembered by history as another Fatih, a great conqueror. Some say you are destined to be the greatest of all the Sultans.'

'The price of such glory was very high. We lost many men.'

'Our army will soon be strong again.'

The remark irritated him. What did she know of armies? 'It was a terrible battle. If it were for a woman's ears, I could tell you things …' He dipped his fingers into a silver bowl of scented rosewater. A page appeared instantly to dry them.

'You must not think about that anymore.'

'By day it is easy not to remember. But at night, in the dark, it is harder not to hear the screams.'

He waited, but Gülbehar did not encourage him further. How can I tell her? I have to tell someone. Or perhaps this is just another burden I must shoulder alone. He looked up at Gülbehar and smiled. How wonderful of God to make such a thing as blue eyes. He let his gaze fall to the shadow of her breasts beneath the silk chemise.

'When you were away,' she said, 'I would take out your poems and read them. It always made me feel close to you again.'

***

After so long with only hard things - the hilt of a sword, the saddle of a horse - it was a glory to again touch something soft. His hands clutched at Gülbehar's body so that several times she squealed with pain and he remembered himself and drew his hand away. But the softness of her belly and her thighs! He spread her legs apart and she wrapped them around his hips. He lost himself in his pleasure, chased away the memory of freezing rain with an arm protruding like a claw form the mud, the tower of Saint Michael emerging from the clouds and smoke. Was it the smell of blood or the taste of near-defeat that haunted him like this? Gülbehar whispered soft words to him and he pushed inside her and with that one urgent movement he felt his body spasm, the bitterness pouring from him.

Like a flood, like a river.

As the roaring of the blood subsided, images tumbled in his brain, future and past; Gülbehar with another son if God wills; the smell of that reeking moat at Rhodes; the executioner's sword glinting in the lamplight as it hung over Piri Pasha's head. Mustapha's sleeping face became his own, and then his father's, a monster with its beard soaking in blood as he ate his own children. He groaned aloud and fell sideways, heard Gülbehar whispering soothing endearments to try and calm him. Her arms and legs snaked around him.

Then nothing.

When he woke there was only the silence of the Harem, the slaves standing mute at the foot of the bed. A single candle burned in the dark. Gülbehar was asleep beside him, still and silent in her sleep as she always was.

This is my Harem, forbidden to all men but me. I have my favourite asleep under my arm, these are my poems in the niches of the walls where Gülbehar keeps the manuscripts of my poetry, each a secret part of me enshrined in the rich language of the Persian. Even within the protocols of the Harem, I have kept these rooms like a sanctuary.

And yet I feel so empty.

She thinks she knows me but she does not. Even my poems are form and style, pretty words, but not truly me. There is no one I can talk to openly except Ibrahim but even with him I must play a role. He would make a better Sultan than ever I would and we both know it.

I have everything but it is not enough. When a man is alone in Paradise it is just the same as being alone in Hell.

Hürrem knew that she had been seduced when she began to anticipate the
hammam
, the morning baths, with pleasure instead of contempt. On the steppe bathing was frowned upon, even feared. Everyone knew it led to chills, sickness and death. And massage and oils! This was indolence, pure and simple.

But the Turk insisted the girls bathe twice a day and shave every hair from their bodies. At first this practice disgusted her; now she enjoyed it. She was getting soft. If only her father could see her now, damn his barbarian soul to hell!

There were three rooms: the
camekan
, or dressing chamber; the
sogukluk
, or warming room; and the largest, central room, the steam room or
hararet
. Hürrem stripped off her clothes and one of the negresses - the
gediçli
- handed her a perfumed towel. She slipped a pair of rosewood
nalins
on her feet and went into the
sogukluk
. The warmth banished her gooseflesh. There was a large marble fountain in the centre of the room with water that had been heated in the massive boiler below and a number of girls were sitting or standing around it, scooping up the water in large copper bowls and pouring it over their heads. Hürrem joined them.

She looked around, while pretending to be occupied with her own toilet. She never ceased to be amazed by the variety of flesh. Until she came here she had not known the world was such a vast place, and that human beings could be so different; hair, nipples, skin, eyes. Such a profusion of shape and colour. There were the
gediçli
with tight black curls and mahogany skins; Greek girls with dark eyes and their hair teased in a thousand ringlets; golden-haired Circassians with blue eyes and pink buds of nipples; Egyptian girls with long, aristocratic profiles and nipples the colour of a bruised plum; Persians with hair the colour of night and eyes deep and dark as wells.

And so many shapes! She scooped another bowl of water over her head, silently comparing herself while pretending not to stare. Some girls had full, pale, blue-veined breasts like nursing mothers, except their bellies were tight and flat; others had breasts like teardrops, some mere buds. Many of the
houris
were young girls barely out of puberty, their bodies impossibly tight and smooth. Hürrem looked down at herself, slim and small like a boy, and wondered why they had chosen her for this place.

Well perhaps I am not as beautiful as some of these odalisques, she reminded herself, but I have golden hair like a fox and cunning to match. She picked up her towel and went into the
hararet
, her pattens clip-clopping on the marble.

Inside, the steam seared the lungs and clung to the skin in a scorching veil. Instantly, perspiration oozed from her skin in a thousand tiny droplets. Willowy shapes moved in and out of the mist like wraiths. The silence here was broken only by the clank of a copper bowl or the splash as a girl got in or out of the bath.

Light filtered from high windows in the domed ceiling, the vapour and walls of grey-veined marble bleeding into one another so that it seemed there were no walls at all.

Hürrem lowered herself into one of the warm pools and closed her eyes, the water lapping around her shoulders and breasts. She rested her head on the marble lip, scooped a handful of water over her face and pushed the damp hair from her eyes.

Look at all these women, skins flushed and tingling from the scalding of steam and hot water, flesh kneaded into suppleness by the
gediçli
, primped and primed in silks and purring like kittens. Yet there is no man to appreciate it. So much anticipation and so little satisfaction!

Hürrem felt movement in the water and opened her eyes. A tall fair-haired woman was sitting on the edge of the bath, while two odalisques scooped water over her body and massaged the muscles of her shoulders. She was leaning back on her arms, head thrown back, her hair almost touching the marble floor behind her. Such outrageous assurance! Gülbehar!

She felt an unexpected rush of hatred and envy. Why you? She thought. With all these women here at his command, why just you? Is it you who is so beguiling or is he just so easy to bewitch?

Gülbehar opened her eyes and caught her staring. What was the look on her face? Was it pity?

Hürrem turned her back and eased herself out of the water, leaving her bottom in full view a moment longer than was necessary. She immediately regretted such a childish gesture.

She has no need to pity me, she thought as she snatched up her towel. Fear me, perhaps, but do not pity me.

***

Marble columns and arches led off the steam room into the
yeni kaplija
, smaller side chambers with raised marble slabs where the
gediçli
tended to the girls, massaging their bodies and minutely inspecting their noses and ears, their legs and arms, their pubis, vagina and anus, ensuring no trace of body hair remained. Hürrem had long abandoned protest at such indignity. After all, they would do it anyway.

Her
gediçli
's name was Muomi, a pouting, sullen girl with tight jet curls. The other
houris
spoke about her in whispers, they said she was a witch and avoided her if they could. She had large hands that knuckled deep into joints and sinews and made the girls scream. Often a girl came out after a session with her, her face wet with tears.

Hürrem enjoyed such a challenge. She won't make me cry.

She flung herself face down on the marble. 'Try to do it properly this time. Last time my shoulders were still knotted.'

'Last time I go soft on you. I thought you were going to cry like a little baby.'

'I'll give you two aspers if you can make me cry.'

'You don't have two aspers.' Muomi started to knead the muscles at her neck and shoulders. Hürrem thought her eyes were going to pop out of her head. She took a deep breath and endured. When Muomi shifted her position to start on her back muscles, she said: 'They say you're a witch.'

'Who says it?'

'The other girls.'

'The other girls! When they bring girls here, they look for beauty not brains. They are all as stupid as camels.'

'Are you a witch?'

Muomi's hands moved along her spine. It felt like she was driving her knuckles between the bones. Hürrem felt the wellspring of tears in her eyes and buried her face in her arms to hide them. She pretended to yawn.

'Well, are you?' she repeated.

'If I were a witch I would have cast some spells and got myself out of here a long time ago.'

She pressed her knuckles deep into Hürrem's buttocks. They found the joint of her hip and Hürrem bit hard into the muscle of her forearm to keep from crying out. 'Your muscles are as hard as a boy's,' Muomi conceded.

'A bit harder,' Hürrem said. 'I can hardly feel it.'

Muomi chuckled. 'Like that?' she said and Hürrem yelped aloud.

***

Meylissa found Hürrem lying on her back while Muomi performed her depilatory. She applied a paste of
rusma
, made with quicklime, and expertly scraped away small hairs with the sharp edge of a mussel shell. Hürrem's breasts rose and fell tremulously with her breathing. Her cheeks were wet.

'Are you all right?' she said.

'I owe this witch two aspers.'

'What for?'

'She wants the
bostanji
's job,' Hürrem said. 'From now on, she will be the Sultan's new head torturer.' Muomi ignored her, shoving her legs apart and examining the perineum minutely for hairs.

Meylissa folded her arms, all petulance. 'What's the point of all this? Muomi is the only one who will ever see if we shave or not. The Sultan never will!'

'We must be ready. We cannot let one golden opportunity be lost for one golden hair.'

Meylissa perched on the edge of the marble and lowered her voice to a whisper. She put a hand on her own slender brown stomach. 'Soon I'll be starting to show.' As soon as she said the words her eyes filled with tears.

Muomi's head jerked up. 'What's wrong with her?'

'She remembers the last time you rubbed her back,' Hürrem said. She clutched Melissa's arm, her nails sinking in so that the younger girl winced. 'Don't talk about it here!'

'What am I going to do?'

'It's all right, I have a plan.'

'What plan?'

'You'll see. Muomi here is going to help us. Aren't you?' Meylissa stared at them, afraid and astonished, but Hürrem said no more. She closed her eyes and gave herself up to the soft world of steam and Muomi's mussel shell.