The Sultan's Seal (27 page)

“Don’t be alarmed,” the old woman says gently. Her hand glides over the carved stone and stops over a protrusion. “You see this lever here. When you pull it, an extraordinary thing happens.”

She pulls the lever and the part of the floor on which Sybil and the eunuch are standing begins to move downward with a low grinding noise. The eunuch lets go of Sybil’s arm. She runs to the edge and tries to catch onto the receding tiles.

“Isn’t this marvelous? This is a device that allows the women of the harem to fish and dabble in the sea without ever being seen by anyone outside.”

Sybil claws at the tiles, but can’t lift herself out. Soon the patio is far above her. She can see Asma Sultan’s head silhouetted against the sky. She is still explaining.

“You can swim in complete privacy. My mother spent time here, fishing. Remarkable, isn’t it? She said it reminded her of her girlhood, when she was free. After my father died, she was sent with his other women to live at the Old Palace. She never left there again. She told me she missed this spot most of all.”

“Please let me up, Your Highness. I would love to hear more about your mother. She sounds like a fascinating woman. Your Highness?” Sybil’s voice sounds hollow, reflecting from the cavernous walls.

“The seawater comes in through the grate behind you. You’re perfectly safe. No one can see you.”

“Please let me up now. My father will be worried. They’ll call out the guard if I don’t appear for dinner.”

Asma Sultan steps closer to the edge of the patio high above. “Arif Agha,” she calls down. “Another Frankish woman, Arif Agha. You’re not deaf. You heard her. She has the ear—and perhaps something else—of the magistrate.” She wheezes a laugh. “Haven’t you had enough? Your fate is tied to mine. That’s the way things are. You know what you have to do.” She pauses, peering down into the shadows, then continues in a wheedling voice. “Some things can’t be restored, Arif Agha, but others can.” Her voice turns hard again. “And there is much to lose.”

The eunuch listens spellbound, head tilted toward the sky, open-mouthed. Sybil thinks she hears him groaning. When she looks up again, the opening contains only sky.

Asma Sultan’s disembodied voice floats down. “The past is the vessel of the future, Sybil Hanoum. Just as I said.”

“I don’t understand. Why are you doing this?” Sybil yells.

There is no answer except the seawater sloshing through the ornate ironwork grill set into one end of the room. Sybil looks around at the high arched ceiling of the underground space. It is painted to resemble the sky, one side light blue with clouds, the other fading to night, decorated with tiny stars and a sickle moon. She can dimly see that the platform on which she and the eunuch stand is an island about fifteen feet square and rests just above the water.

The eunuch is pacing back and forth, his eyes never leaving the square of sky high above them.

Sybil turns and asks him in Turkish, “What is happening here? Isn’t she coming back?”

The eunuch stops; his gleaming eyes fix on Sybil. They hear the sound of oars splashing just beyond the iron grill, then receding.

“Do you know a way out of here? There must be a way up. I can’t believe the sultanas would let themselves be trapped down here at someone else’s mercy.”

She speaks to the eunuch in Turkish to keep her spirits up, even though he hasn’t said a word.

“I’m sure someone will come and get us. The embassy staff knows where I went.” Even as she says it, she is unsure whether she told the staff her exact destination. They might think I’ve gone to the palace, she thinks. But surely they would find Asma Sultan and ask about me.

A sudden realization chills Sybil: Asma Sultan could say she hasn’t seen me; that it was a mistake on my part; that I must have been invited by someone else. There’s no proof that Asma Sultan invited me. It was a verbal message delivered by a servant. But I was picked up by Asma Sultan’s eunuch. Everyone saw him. He will have identified himself at the embassy gate.

The eunuch looks up at the sky, his body tense, listening. Sybil kneels and looks over the edge of the platform. The water isn’t very deep. The underground walls are lined with marble reliefs of trees and flowers mottled with peeling paint. A small rowboat bumps against one far wall. She looks anxiously around for a way up or another lever, but sees only a marble stairway resting against the platform and leading down into the water. So that the women can swim, she thinks.

She paces about the platform, then sits at one end, trying to make conversation with the stubbornly silent eunuch. Above her, the square of sky slowly becomes streaked with pink, then blends more and more with the darker half of the ceiling.

Sybil is cold and her legs are stiff. Tired of inactivity, she bunches her skirts and folds them over her arm, stepping carefully onto the slick marble stair. When she has descended so that the water reaches her chest, her feet encounter the paved surface of the floor. Her skirts are drenched and heavy. She looks around at the eunuch, who hasn’t moved, then climbs partway up again, removes her skirts, and heaves them onto the platform. This time, there is less resistance as she pushes her way through the water to the boat. She can’t swim, so she is wary of a change in depth and pushes each foot forward carefully, but the floor is even and she reaches the boat without difficulty. Inside are the remains of a velvet carpet, silk cushions, and two oars. A brass lamp hangs from the carved prow. She pulls the boat back to the platform to examine it. She is shaking with cold. The eunuch squats and stares at her wordlessly.

“Well, we’ve found a boat, although I can’t imagine how we’ll get it past that iron grate.” Suddenly she looks down at the water. It is still at the same height. “We don’t have to worry about high tide, do we?” she asks anxiously.

The eunuch doesn’t respond.

“And we have a lamp. Let’s see if we can light it.”

She looks inside, then says excitedly, “Look, there’s oil in here.” In a small container in the base, she finds flint and lights the lamp. The eunuch turns away as if the light hurts his eyes. Sybil climbs into the boat and rows inexpertly to the wall. Holding the lamp high, she inspects every inch of it, fingers scrabbling among the flakes of paint, searching for a mechanism to make the platform ascend. Soon it is so dark she can no longer make out the eunuch on the platform, only the ghostly glow of his white robe.

“M
iss Sybil was picked up by a eunuch in a carriage early this morning. She said she was visiting a member of the Ottoman royal family,” the butler says officiously.

Kamil tries to keep his voice patient. “Do you remember who she was visiting?” Bernie paces the floor behind him.

“No, sir. I’m sorry, I don’t.” A note of anxiety has slipped into his voice. “Has something happened?”

Bernie strides over and confronts the butler. “Freddie, aren’t you responsible for knowing what goes on here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then how can you not know where Miss Sybil has gone?”

“She didn’t tell me, sir. It wouldn’t be proper for me to ask.”

Bernie regards him with a look of disgust. “It’s your business to find out, Freddie, not just let anyone walk off with her.”

Freddie barks at a servant to fetch the head English gatekeeper. The young man hurries away.

Kamil asks the disheveled butler kindly, “When were you expecting her to return?”

The butler’s eyes move to the dusk infiltrating the Residence windows. “She usually returns in time for dinner.”

Kamil turns to Bernie. “I was expected for dinner about an hour ago.”

“The ambassador has just finished dining, sir. I’m sorry.” The butler looks abashed. “If Miss Sybil isn’t here, he eats in his office,” he explains.

Bernie’s voice is menacing, “And you didn’t think to be alarmed when Miss Sybil didn’t return, even though she had invited a guest to dinner?”

“What could I do, sir? She’s probably just delayed,” he adds uncertainly.

Kamil takes Bernie aside and asks, “Should we tell the ambassador?”

Bernie shakes his head. “Do more harm than good. My uncle is a good man, but, between us, a bit of a loose cannon.”

“I know what you mean.” Kamil is relieved not to have to deal with Sybil’s father now. He wants to find Sybil, and it is all he can do to stop himself from rushing out the door.

“Do the maids know anything?” he asks Bernie.

“No. I talked to the whole staff. The maid who helped Sybil dress said she told her she was going to visit someone in the palace. That’s all. Let’s go look in her room.” He strides up the stairs two at a time, Kamil right behind him.

With some trepidation at this invasion of a woman’s forbidden realm, Kamil follows Bernie into Sybil’s bedroom. The room is spare but feminine, all white and beige, the room’s outlines blurred by soft fabrics edged with delicate laces.

“Over here.” Bernie gestures at a piece of paper lying on Sybil’s writing desk.

They read Sybil’s letter together. Kamil is startled by the revelation that she was waiting for him to ask for her in marriage.

“Damnation. Let’s go find her.” Bernie calls down to the butler, “Get Sami. We need the phaeton.” He turns to Kamil. “It’ll be faster.”

When they arrive downstairs, Freddie is gone, but the gatekeeper is there. They ask who picked Sybil up that morning.

“The, er, the eunitch”—the gatekeeper blushes scarlet as he pronounces the word—“the Negro, ’e gave me a paper.” He holds out a piece of expensive parchment with a gold-embossed crest. On it are two lines of Ottoman in a practiced calligraphy, sealed in red. “I couldn’t read it, sir.”

Bernie snatches the paper out of his hand. “It never occurred to you to ask someone what it said? If anything’s happened to Miss Sybil, it’ll be on your head.” The gatekeeper looks horrified.

“Miss Sybil?” he stutters. “What’s ’appened to ’er?”

Ignoring him, Bernie shows the paper to Kamil. “What does it say? I have trouble with this kind of fancy writing.”

“It’s an invitation to lunch.”

“From Asma Sultan.”

“No. From Shukriye Hanoum.” They look at each other speechlessly.

Kamil adds, “It’s her family’s seal.”

“What in damnation…?” He looks over Kamil’s shoulder. “Where?”

“It doesn’t say. It only specifies the date and time and that Shukriye Hanoum’s servant will pick her up.”

“But the eunuch brought it when he came to get her. It wasn’t sent ahead of time.”

“There must have been an earlier message. Clearly, this one is meant to deceive anyone looking for her.”

“Mother of God. If Sybil hadn’t left that letter, we’d be off on a wild goose chase. Come on in here. Be quick, man.”

Bernie runs into a room off the main hall, pulls a volume from the bookshelf, and extracts a key. He unlocks a drawer and pulls out two pistols. He checks to see if they are loaded, then holds one out to Kamil. Kamil points at his feet. “I’m armed.”

“You mean with that religious mumbo jumbo in your boots?” Bernie snorts. “That won’t get you very far against a bullet!”

Kamil pulls a needle-thin blade from his boot. “Allah helps those who help themselves.” He opens his coat to reveal the holster on his hip. “I need some paper.”

Bernie points to a writing desk.

Kamil takes out a blank sheet and writes several lines in Ottoman, the script flowing smoothly right to left. He signs with a flourish, then rummages in the drawer and pulls out a cylinder of sealing wax. He removes a small brass seal from his pocket and imprints the insignia of his office on the bottom of the letter and again on the envelope.

Sami is waiting at the door with the phaeton. Kamil takes him aside and hands him the envelope.

“You are to mount the fastest horse in your stables and ride ahead of us to Middle Village. Do you know where that is?”

“Yes, efendi. I know the area well.”

“Take this letter directly to the headman of Middle Village. It asks him to take his sons and go to the commander of gendarmes, not to the police. Sybil Hanoum’s life may be in danger. Do you understand?”

“Yes, efendi. Not the police.”

“Go with him. The headman is to show them this letter. It commands the gendarmes to issue them weapons and to accompany them to Asma Sultan’s summer house in Tarabya immediately. Allah willing, their presence will be superfluous.”

Kamil jumps into the phaeton. Bernie is already seated, hunched forward and restlessly twisting the reins.

“If we alerted the British guards, we’d have to tell the ambassador,” Kamil shouts. “And I’m not sure of the loyalty of the police anymore. This is the best way.”

The horses clatter down the drive toward the gate.

I
wanted a celebration, a proper setting for my response to Mary. Violet insisted on coming, saying she had prepared special foods for us. By the time we arrived at the sea hamam and the driver was dispatched with instructions to return in three hours’ time, the lip of the sky bled magenta. But inside the walls of the sea hamam, we could see only the sky’s unclouded blue eye following Violet as she spread the covers, set up the brazier, and unpacked the copper pans of dolma, cheese pastries, fruit, and savories. It was a feast. I slipped off my feradje, revealing a new gown of sheerest apricot silk under a striped satin tunic of apple and ginger. My breasts were wreathed in a transparent cloud of silk gauze. My hair was woven into a hundred braids wrapped in diamonds and pearls.

Mary had taken off her shoes. Her slim white feet dangled over the pool. In water, she was slippery as an eel. Like most women, she couldn’t swim, but the water in the sea hamam wasn’t very deep. I remember it made her anxious when I ducked below the surface. I used to slip along under the boards and burst up in a spray behind her so that she shrieked with fear. The hamam walls protected us from the wind, and the strait here was tamed, drawn continually like a fan across the sand. The water was so clear one could mistake it for a shadow.

I wondered whether anyone else had come here since we had abandoned it the previous year. The winter damp had warped some of the boards. I noticed that our mattress, the mattress Mary had hired someone to bring here in anticipation of our first visit, was stained where it had not been stained before. I supposed anyone could have come here while we were gone, perhaps young boys thrilled at being masters of a realm that soon would be off-limits, haram, dangerous. Once we had spread our new quilt, though, we were almost as before.

“Why did you bring your maid?” she whispered, looking at Violet sitting in a cubicle near the brazier.

“Violet? She can serve us. Don’t you like being served?” I cocked my head at her, but I could see she hadn’t decided whether I was joking.

“Well, I suppose.”

“She insisted on coming and I couldn’t say no. She’s so unsettled by everything, even though my father has found her a good husband—so she won’t be alone.”

Mary looked at me expectantly, but I said nothing more.

I knew Mary didn’t like to undress in front of strangers, so she wouldn’t go into the water tonight. It was too cold, in any case.

“We’ll just chat, then.” I pulled the quilt out to the walkway circling the water and lay on it with my face to the sky. She came and sat next to me.

“Lie down, Mary. Come see the stars.”

She let herself down, using her elbows, and arranged her skirts so that they covered her legs. She wore a simple white blouse. Her cap of hair shone gold in the dark.

The quilted satin smooth against our palms, we looked up into the square of night sky revealed by the geometry of the hamam walls.

“It looks like your hair, Jaanan. Braided with diamonds,” she whispered.

I took her hand.