The Aviary Gate (45 page)

Celia opened her mouth to say something, and then shut it again.

‘You should thank everything you hold holy that it wasn't you who was made the messenger,' Gulay added. ‘At first, I wasn't at all sure which one of you she'd choose. But then, well, it was obvious to me that it would be Hanza. The ambitious ones are always the easiest to manipulate, the ones who think they can do it all on their own. That was a lesson I learnt very early on.'

A silence now fell between them; a silence like the shrieking of a banshee, so loud Celia wanted to cover her ears to block it out.

‘But what about your apartment? They've taken everything away, all your things, they're gone,' she said at last. ‘Are you still moving to the old palace?'

At this Gulay gave a laugh of real amusement.

‘You really think I'd do that? Leave here, and leave the field open for
her
?' The Haseki's lips narrowed. ‘If you really believe that, then you're more of a fool than I thought. No, I'm moving to a new apartment, that's all. I've been staying with the Sultan at the summer palace for the last two days. After all that bother the other evening we all thought it was for the best. Besides, it was becoming a little – draughty – in the old one.'

‘All that “bother”, is that what you call it?'

In the bed next to her, Handan's frail form stirred. A small sound, like the pitiful mewing of a cat, came from beneath the coverlets. Gulay dropped her hand in disgust.

‘
Faugh
! How it stinks these days.'

‘Can't you see, she's not well!' Celia was trembling. ‘I can't believe the Valide can have done this to her.'

‘Hmm …' Gulay Haseki put her head to one side thoughtfully, ‘well not the Valide, not exactly.'

‘What can you mean,
not exactly
? Who then?'

‘Well, little Kaya, me of course.' The Haseki fixed Celia with her cerulean gaze. ‘It was rather kind of me actually. You see, when her son Prince Ahmet was born she had some problems – women's problems, you know. She was very ill. So they gave her opium, to ease the pain. Well, everyone has their little weakness. They tried everything to stop it, the Valide even had her shut her up in here, poor creature, but somehow,' she sighed, ‘her friends always found a
way to help her. They always do, you know,' she turned to Celia, fixing her with a steady gaze, ‘just like I helped you.'

‘You helped me?'

‘Of course. As soon as you became
gözde
. I thought to myself: I must help that poor child through her ordeal. So I sent the servant girl with a little drink.'

‘Oh!' Celia put a hand to her hot cheeks. ‘And I thought it was Cariye Lala who had given me too much opium.'

Gulay laughed again, incredulously this time. ‘Well, I'm sorry about that, but I'm afraid it had to be done.' She gave a little shrug. ‘Do you know, I really was afraid that he might like you.'

‘Well, he didn't,' Celia said in a hollow voice. ‘He liked Hanza instead.'

‘That scrawny little bag of Bosnian bones?' Gulay said, playing with the rings on her fingers. ‘Hanzas come and Hanzas go. I've seen many of them over the years and believe me, she'd never have lasted. A few quick pokes—' she made a crude gesture with her fingers ‘—and
pouf
! they're gone, back to their cramped little dormitories. Oh, no, I've never worried about the Hanzas.' She turned her blue eyes on Celia again. ‘What he likes is softness, sweetness,' she lay back against Handan's cushions so that Celia could see her breasts, white as milk, through the fine lawn creases of her chemise, ‘sweet, soft flesh.' The glance she gave Celia was almost lascivious. ‘Oh, for goodness' sake, don't look at me like that. We all do what we have to do to save our own skin. Even those who are closest to us. Even your friend Annetta …'

‘No, she wouldn't!'

‘You think so? How charming!' Gulay gave a little shrug. ‘Listen, it's what we all do, it's what you're going to do.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean that you are going to help me destroy the Nightingales of Manisa.'

The Nightingales again. Why did it always come back to them?

‘Why are the Nightingales so important?'

‘Because if I can destroy them, I can destroy her.'

‘Who?'

‘Oh who do you think?' Gulay made an impatient sound. ‘The Valide, of course.' She sighed as if she were dealing with a particularly
stupid child. ‘Oh, very well then. I can see I'm going to have to do a little more explaining. Although as a matter of fact, you've already helped me very considerably – more than I ever anticipated.'

‘So Annetta was right after all,' Celia said slowly. ‘You have been getting me to do your work for you. You didn't know who Cariye Mihrimah was either. So you set me up to find out for you.'

‘Well, what would you have done?' Gulay laughed, she sounded almost coaxing again. ‘In my position I really couldn't go around asking too many awkward questions. You saw for yourself how the Valide spies on me. I had to find someone, someone – let's say – who was fresh to this way of life; someone a little older, perhaps, than the average
cariye
, and with enough status to move about the palace relatively unimpeded. But most of all someone who had a reason of her own to want to find out. Someone who would stir things up a little …'

‘But I had no reason at all to want to find out about Cariye Mihrimah,' Celia countered. ‘I didn't even know I was looking for her, until—'

‘Until?' The Haseki's blue eyes looked almost black in the dim light of Handan's room.

‘Until the business about the sugar ship.' Celia sat down on the bed. Her legs were weak and she felt very hot suddenly, and her head was swimming.

‘Rather clever of me, hmm? I made sure that you knew that there had been an English embassy. And that it was they who had sent the sugar ship—'

‘The one that they said had poisoned Hassan Aga—'

‘Otherwise known as Little Nightingale.'

Once again, Celia was silenced.

The Haseki stood up and went over to the brazier. She took some resin from a bowl and, crumbling it between her fingers, threw some lumps on to the burning coals. They burst into flames instantly, and their sweet smell began to permeate the fetid room.

‘You're wrong to think that I didn't know who Cariye Mihrimah was. I suspected for a long time that Cariye Lala must be the third Nightingale, but I couldn't prove it absolutely, and I needed to be sure. That insignificant little under-mistress from the bathhouse the intimate of the Valide and the Chief Black Eunuch! It didn't seem possible.

‘So I started watching her. I watched her very carefully. On the few occasions when I saw her in the presence of the Valide, neither of them ever gave even the smallest sign that there was a connection between them. But with Hassan Aga it was different. It was at night, there were fewer people around, and their guard was down. For a start, I was able to see them together far more frequently. When he and his eunuch guard escorted me to the Sultan at night, Cariye Lala was often there.

‘The first time I just intercepted a look passing between them; but then, over the months, I began to see other things, small but unmistakable gestures, imperceptible to anyone who wasn't looking for them: a smile, a few whispered words, the touch of his hand. So, yes, for some months now I have suspected that she was Cariye Mihrimah, the third Nightingale, but I still had no real evidence.'

‘But why did it all have to be such a secret?'

‘Because Cariye Mihrimah,' the Haseki said, ‘was supposed to be dead.'

‘Dead?'

‘Yes, like Hanza. Tied up in a sack and thrown to the bottom of the Bosphorous.'

‘What had she done?'

‘It was in the time of the old Sultan, many years ago now. It was kept very quiet at the time, because Safiye Sultan was involved, but there were plenty of rumours. I first heard them from one of the old eunuchs when I was living in Manisa myself, before any of us came here. They said that the old Valide was plotting against her, trying to lure the Sultan away from her with new concubines. Safiye Sultan was terrified of losing her influence; terrified that the Sultan might prefer another to herself, or worse, perhaps even choose another concubine's son as his successor. They said that she had put a spell on the Sultan, used witchcraft, or worse, black magic, to ensure that he would be unable to love any other woman. But one day she was found out. Perhaps it was one of her own servants who gave her away, who knows? Whatever really happened, in the end it was Cariye Mihrimah who got the blame. She was sentenced to death, but somehow,' the Haseki shrugged, ‘she didn't die after all.'

‘What happened to her?'

‘I don't know. My guess is that they must have bribed the guards, sent her into hiding somewhere, until the old Sultan died. At that point all the women who had been part of his harem were sent to the Eski Saray, the old palace, everyone except for Safiye Sultan, of course, who then became the Valide, presiding over her son's new household.'

And Cariye Tata and Cariye Tusa, Celia thought. But she said nothing.

‘In Sultan Mehmet's harem there was no one who knew who she was,' Gulay went on, ‘no one who would recognise her. So they brought her back into the household again, changed her name, and no one was any the wiser.'

‘But what does any of that matter now?' Gulay crumbled some more resin into the brazier; the tiny red-hot embers hissed and spat. ‘It has taken me years. Years of watching and waiting; smiling, smiling and smiling as if I hadn't a care in the world, but finally I have found her weak spot. Just like I found hers …' She put her hand into Handan's hair and with one swift movement jerked her head, with its sad vacant eyes, round to face them. The flames, Celia saw, made two tiny sparks in the dark pupils of her eyes.

‘Haseki Sultan,' when Celia finally found her tongue, she addressed Gulay formally again, ‘Cariye Lala is an old woman now. Why do you want to hurt her?'

‘It's not her I'm interested in, you fool. It's the Valide. Don't you see? When the Sultan finds out that she deliberately countered a royal command – that Cariye Mihrimah be killed – it will discredit her so far in his eyes he'll have her banished from here once and for all.'

‘You think the Sultan would do that to his own mother?' Celia was disbelieving. ‘They say he can't make a move without her advice.'

‘The Sultan is fat and weak and idle.' Gulay spoke as if she had tasted something sour. ‘At the beginning, when he first became Sultan, four years ago now, he needed her, it's true. But do you really think he likes her meddling ways? She tries to influence everything he does, from which foreign embassies to favour, to whom he should appoint as the next grand vizier. She's even had a secret door made in the council chamber so she can sit in on his audiences. Why, there was even a time when she tried to stop him from making me his Haseki – for some reason she thought I'd be less
easy to control than this one—' Gulay said, indicating Handan, ‘and that was her biggest mistake.'

So that's what all this is about, Celia thought. She could feel the sweat breaking out on her forehead. Throughout their conversation Gulay had spoken with the same gentle, serene tones that Celia remembered from their first meeting in the garden. But when she turned to her, there was that look again: an expression of pure intelligence, and behind it such a terrifying concentration of will that Celia dropped her gaze as if she had been burnt.

‘Nothing is going to stop my son from succeeding as the next Sultan.'

‘And so you will be the next Valide.'

‘And I will be the Valide.'

For a few moments there was complete silence in the room.

‘So you see, little Kaya, in my position there is everything to play for – and everything to lose.' With her jewelled fingers the Haseki smoothed the gauze of her headdress. ‘If I lose, well, I risk not only banishment with all the others to the old palace, but the murder of my son. He will be strangled with a bow string, just like the others.' For a moment a shadow seemed to pass over her face. ‘I was here – I saw it. Those nineteen little coffins, the women keening for their babies,' for a moment her voice seemed to catch in the back of her throat, ‘you can have no idea, Kaya Kadin, no idea at all what it was like.'

Behind her on the bed the frail form of Handan stirred lightly beneath the coverlets.

‘The Sultan is weary of his mother's meddling. He's often threatened to send her to the old palace, and this, you mark my words, this could have her banished there for good.'

‘And the other two?'

‘Powerless without her protection. Perhaps she'll take Hassan Aga with her, but as for Cariye Lala, I don't suppose she'll escape the Bosphorous second time round.'

‘But Cariye Lala is old,' Celia said softly. ‘Why should she take the blame again for something she didn't do?'

‘Oh, but this time she did do something. Don't you see, it was Cariye Lala who poisoned the Chief Black Eunuch?'

But no, no she didn't, Celia wanted to scream out. Instead she said
in as calm a voice as she could manage, ‘But I thought you told me Hassan Aga was her friend.'

‘I think he was more than a friend.' Gulay laughed. ‘I have an instinct about these things. Haven't you heard of these understandings? Innocent little arrangements for the most part, easily crushed, all childish posies and stolen kisses and holding hands, they happen all the time.' Gulay stood up and walked towards the chest; she took up a pair of dusty diamond earrings and held them up to her face. ‘Some of them can be very passionate; there are some, so I'm told, that last a whole lifetime.' She dropped the earrings with a careless clatter. ‘Which is why I knew she would do something – perhaps even something quite terrible,' Gulay picked out the words with care, ‘if she ever found him with someone else.'