Harem (6 page)

The Kislar Aghasi woke to the sound of a woman screaming. At first he thought it might be just one of the girls crying in her sleep - some of the new ones did that, and he would have to organize a beating for them the next day to encourage them to stop. But as he came awake he realized this was no milksop's nightmare. He had heard screams like that before, coming from the
bonstanji-bashi's
torture chamber. He swung his legs off the cot and reached for his wooden pattens. His hands were trembling.

The candle had not burned down far, so he guessed he could not have been asleep more than an hour. He took the candle and hurried out into the corridor, his belly shivering like jelly inside his nightshirt.

The screams came from the dormitory on the floor above. He summoned two of his guards and hurried up the wooden stairs.

Meylissa rolled naked on the floor, tearing at the bare wooden boards with her fingernails. Another spasm shook her and she curled her knees into her chest and retched. There was blood everywhere, soaked into her bedding and smeared across her face. There was a pink froth around her lips.

The other girls had gathered round her, pale and terrified. When Meylissa writhed again they screamed and jumped back as if she might infect them all. She tried to say something but her mouth just gaped open like a fish and the sounds she made sounded anything but human. She clutched her belly and screamed again.

The guards tried to pick her up and she kicked out at them. She stared up at the Kislar Aghasi and her lips drew back from her teeth in a snarl, like a rabid dog. He felt someone come to stand at his shoulder. He turned around; it was Hürrem.

Meylissa pointed a crooked finger at her and again tried to say something but then her mouth filled with blood and she choked on the words.

The hunting dogs flushed the partridge from its lair in the sagebrush. It exploded out of its hiding place, its short wings beating frantically at the air. Ibrahim laughed and raised the heavy leather gauntlet on his left wrist. The female peregrine falcon quivered with excitement.

Ibrahim removed the hood. The golden eyes blinked once, then the bird launched itself upwards, soaring on massive wings to its pitch in just moments.

Ibrahim and Suleiman spurred their horses and set after it.

The falcon dipped its wings. One moment it was riding the currents, as weightless as the air itself; the next it fell from the sky like a rock. The partridge flapped in panic but it had no chance of escaping; the peregrine hit it from above in an explosion of feathers and its talons took purchase on the spine with a blow so violent that its victim died mid-flight.

Both birds fell together towards the ground, the falcon releasing its death grip at the last moment. It wheeled away and the partridge fell dead into the swamp.

Ibrahim whooped and galloped to the edge of the black water; the dogs splashed in almost directly under his horse's hoofs, vying with each other to be first to retrieve the prize.

Ibrahim looked up and stretched out a gloved arm for his falcon, wheeling above him.

The boar watched the intruder from its sanctuary in a grove of wild rose, its yellow eyes bright with terror and rage. It backed further into the gorse and thorns. From one side came the yapping of the hunting dogs, from the other the thunder of horses and the shouts of the archers.

It was trapped. It had no choice.

Snorting with fear and rage, it charged from the brambles.

Suleiman saw it come and shouted a warning. The beast struck Ibrahim's Arab mare high on its flank, one yellow tusk piercing its belly and tearing a bloodied hole. She bellowed with agony and reared back. The boar charged again and Ibrahim was thrown to the ground.

Suleiman was fifty paces away. He pulled his bow from the leather scabbard on his saddle, and took aim. His first arrow buried itself in the boar's shoulder, throwing it on its side. It staggered to its feet, squealing, turning to face this new tormentor.

Suleiman reined in, pulling another arrow from the jewelled quiver. This time he hit the beast behind the shoulder, the steel tip angling in towards the heart, burying itself almost to the flight.

The boar's hind legs gave way.

In moments arrow after arrow thudded into its grey body and it died. The Yeniçeri archers cheered and ran forward and immediately Suleiman's horse was surrounded by
solak
cavalry. He ignored the captain's shouted apologies - for a moment the Sultan had been exposed to the boar - and jumped from the saddle.

'Ibrahim?'

The Arab mare was still on her feet, wheeling and bellowing, as the hunting dogs wheeled around her legs, jumping at the purple viscera trailing from her flank. Several
Yeniçeris
milled amongst them, one tried to catch her reins, another swore and slashed at the dogs with his
killiç
.

The wounded horse, eyes bulging, galloped towards him. Suleiman staggered back, but then the dogs were at her again and she wheeled away once more and took off through the quince trees.

Suleiman looked around, dazed. Where was Ibrahim?

Suddenly he saw him, knee deep in the swamp, his white kaftan covered with mud. His turban was askew, lending an air of madness to his wicked grin. In his right hand he held the partridge by its bloodied neck.

'We have our prize!' he shouted to Suleiman.

'I thought you were dead!'

'While I have my Sultan to protect me, how could I die?'

There was such boyish innocence about him, Suleiman thought, as if it had all been a game. He looked so pleased with himself, and with his trophy, that Suleiman forgot his fear and his anger. He threw back his head and laughed, too.

***

They were in Suleiman's pavilion; the music of Ibrahim's viol had to compete with the croaking of frogs from the swamp. The light from the candles rippled on the billowing folds of the tent.

Suleiman was elated from the hunt and could not sleep. He sat cross-legged on the divan listening to Ibrahim play, but his mind was not on the music. He had finally resolved, in his mind, a matter that had troubled him for some weeks. He had weighed his choice against the demands of court protocol, and had now justified his decision to his own conscience.

'I am replacing Achmed Pasha as Grand Vizier,' he said suddenly.

Ibrahim stopped playing abruptly. 'You are replacing him? He has been derelict in his duty?'

'No, he has not been remiss. It is just that … I do not believe that he has the ability any longer …'

'Yes, yes. Once he may have been adequate for the position. But he has lost those powers he once possessed. I intend for him to be my governor in Egypt. I shall not humiliate him.'

'Who will be his replacement?'

Suleiman felt like a father passing on a treasured heirloom to his son. 'With you, Ibrahim.'

'Me?'

'Yes, you will be my new Grand Vizier!'

Suleiman waited for the anticipated gush of gratitude, but it did not come. Ibrahim cradled his viol in his arms and stared gloomily at his hands.

'What's the matter?'

'Some of the Divan will wonder why you have elevated me to such a high rank at the expense of such an experienced man.'

'It is not for them to question my judgment on anything.'

'But what they will say privately concerns me.'

'What they say privately cannot harm you!'

'It will seem that I have been appointed in his place only because of our great friendship.'

Suleiman stared at him in astonishment. This was not what he had expected at all. He suspected Suleiman was not in the least concerned with the opinion of his peers in the Divan, or with Osmanli protocol. There was something else troubling him.

A night breeze ruffled the sides of the tent, like a long and drawn out sigh. The exasperation of God?

'I am afraid,' Ibrahim murmured.

'Afraid?' He thought about him emerging from the swamp with the partridge clutched in his fist. 'You are unafraid of being gored by a wild boar or trampled by your own horse but you are afraid if the Divan?'

'No, my Lord. I am afraid of you.'

'Me?

'The Grand Vizier's neck is always under the sword, my Lord.'

Suleiman was shocked that he should think this of him. Suleiman's own father had disposed of eight of his viziers in as many years. A common curse among the people at the time had been: 'May you become vizier to Selim the Grim!' But he was nothing like his father.

Or at least that was what he ahd told himself. Yet hadn't he, blinded by his own rage, almost executed poor old Piri Pasha?

'You have nothing to fear from me, Ibrahim.'

'You do me great honour. I always thought that I wanted this, until now. But you should not raise me so high that when I fall, I will die.'

Suleiman placed his hands on his shoulders. 'I give you my word. While I live, I shall see that you never come to harm. May God be my judge!'

Ibrahim took Suleiman's hand and kissed the ruby ring. 'Very well,' he whispered. 'In truth you have brought me fame beyond my wildest dreams. I pledge myself to serve you until the day I die.'

The Eski Saraya

The Kapi Aga looked around the shadowed court and felt his guts turn to ice. She is not here, she has betrayed you!

The body is traitor, also, he thought. Drawn by pleasure like moth to a flame but what does it bring us to? The searing destruction of the fire. I could not help myself, even though I knew where it would lead me. This same flesh that brought me to ecstasy will offer me up to all the torments that Satan - or the chief
bostanji-bashi
, which is the same thing - can devise.

What was he doing here? She was the Devil's spawn, that girl. But killing her now was not the inconsequential it might have been before she was
iqbal
. Besides, then he would never again feel her warm breasts pressed against him, or the hunger of her mouth, all the forbidden delights he thought he would never taste again when Meylissa died.

Even food, money or power could not replace what he had found in this shadowed court, among the whispering fountains and marble walks and long-fingered plane trees. Here he was no longer a eunuch, and the razor's edge of danger that accompanied their trysts made his enjoyment only sweeter.

What if Hürrem became pregnant also? There seemed no end to this dark tunnel of lust and its consequence. How many times had he promised himself he would never return and how long did his resolve withstand the lure of just one last time?

She had enslaved him with her bite, her scents, her writhing, her yielding. It blotted out all else. These few snatched moments had become the purpose of his entire life now.

How easy to pretend they would never be caught, that this might never end. He heard someone behind him and span around.

'Did I frighten you?' Hürrem whispered.

He felt as if his heart would lurch out of his chest. It was beating so hard it almost hurt. 'Where did you come from?'

'I was watching you from behind the pillar.' She wore pantaloons of white silk and a
gömlek
of sheer emerald silk, open to the waist. The valley between her breasts deepened with each breath. She looked so composed. Was she never frightened? She wore a gauze veil attached to the green taplock she wore on her head and she pushed it aside with a practiced motion of her right hand. Her breath was hot on his cheek. 'Let's do it, quickly.'

He glanced up at the north tower. The doors were locked, he reminded himself, but he pulled her further into the shadows anyway.

Hürrem lifted up his robe. 'How does it feel to be a man again?'

'You killed her,' he said.

'It was not my fault. The abortive was too strong.'

'You meant to do it.'

'What if I did? Would you despise me for it? You would have killed us both if you thought it would save your neck. I saved you the trouble.'

The pantaloons lay on the marble. She unfastened the three diamond clasps of the
gömlek
. 'She was your friend,' he said.

'While you two were practically strangers. You made her pregnant as she passed you in the cloister.' She leaned back against the wall. His mouth was dry. Her nipples were hard; but then it was cold in the shadows.

He took her roughly by the wrists and pressed her back against the wall. 'Perhaps one day I will introduce you to the Bosphorus.' He put his right hand at her throat. It was a small neck and his hand could have enclosed it easily. He traced the contours of her shoulder to her breast, squeezing as hard as he could, tried to make her cry out. But she made no sound, staring back at him with cold, green eyes.

'They say it's rough this time of year,' she said. 'You should take care you do not fall in yourself. The Sultan might miss his Kapi Aga less than his new iqbal.' She wrapped her thighs around his hips, guiding him into her. She took a fold of his robe and stuffed it into his mouth to keep him from crying out when he reached his sublime moment. The fountains alone could not disguise such a sound.

The Kapi Aga bit down on the silk, hating her for the power she had over him, hating himself for his weakness. Hürrem wrapped her arms around his neck and moved her hips slowly in time with his. 'Give me your juice,' she whispered. 'I want it all.'

A moment of shuddering bliss. For a few scarlet moments he was free of her and free of his servitude to women, and he gave himself up to it. He slipped through a break in the clouds and never wanted to return. Like a little death.

But then he opened his eyes. The cold evening drew on; only the terror remained.

Life was a trap. There was no way out.

***

The Kapi Aga did not hear of his success from Hürrem herself. One day he woke and found the palace alive with rumour; the
iqbal
was with child!

So what should he do now? Surely he could not go to the garden again. She was
kadin
now, and to be discovered alone with a
kadin
was an offense to heinous to contemplate. But if he did not, what would the witch do then?

And then another thought struck him: what if the child was his? No, impossible. He could scarce credit that he had got Meylissa with child. Not Hürrem too?

He was a pawn in a game he no longer understood. From the first moment he opened that gate to seduce one of the Lord of Life's odalisques, he had lost all power over his own fate.

There was nothing to do now but wait.