The Aviary Gate (46 page)

‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean I wanted to flush her out,' she replied, her voice suddenly harsh, ‘flush her from her hiding place. Make her do something that would expose her completely.' She picked up the emerald aigrette, testing its spike idly against her finger. ‘So I arranged for one of my own serving girls to seduce him. I found the perfect night for it. By coincidence it was the same night that you were chosen – the Valide's doing, by the way – for a visit to the Sultan. If you remember – can you remember anything about that night? – the harem was almost empty; most of the women and eunuchs were was still at the summer palace.

‘Anyway, after I had got rid of you, the Sultan and I … rested … for a little while, and when he was asleep I sent one of the guards to find Cariye Lala for me. I gave her the sugar ship, the same one that had been left by the Sultan's bed, which after our little rest together now by rights belonged to me, and told her to take it to the Chief Black Eunuch's room,' Gulay smiled, ‘with my apologies for upsetting the evening.'

‘And you knew that she would find him with the girl.'

‘Yes.'

Gulay tossed the emerald aigrette to one side; it landed beside the still-sleeping form of Handan on the divan.

‘And – did she?' Celia could feel a trickle of sweat running down her belly. She hoped her voice sounded normal.

‘Well, of course she did. You know what happened, she poisoned them, poisoned them both. After all, who else would have wanted them dead?'

‘But …' Celia began, getting to her feet, but the words would not come. In the stifling room her head was swimming.

‘In the end, he didn't die of course – but we must be patient, you and I, always patient—'

‘You and I?'

‘But of course, you and I. One thing you must learn is that things never work out quite as you expect them to.' Gulay seemed to be talking almost to herself. ‘The Valide covered it all up this time, but not even
she
can keep protecting her for ever …'

‘But Cariye Lala …' Celia tried again.

‘Yes, Cariye Lala.' Gulay's eyes burned. ‘Cariye Lala, Cariye Mihrimah – whatever that pitiful, worn-out, withered-up old crone calls herself – the Valide must actually
love
her.' She spat the words out. ‘Saving that useless old woman is probably the only mistake she's ever made.' On the Haseki's cheeks two bright spots of red had appeared. ‘Well, it's given me my chance at last. I'm going to expose them once and for all, and you are going to help me do it. I'll break her. I'll break her power. And her heart!'

‘But Cariye Lala didn't do it.'

‘What?'

‘Cariye Lala didn't do it,' Celia almost shouted at her. ‘Cariye Lala didn't poison the Chief Black Eunuch – you did!'

At once the Haseki's expression changed to cold rage. Her eyes were two narrow slits. ‘You're mad.'

‘No, not mad at all.'

There was a shocked pause.

‘You'll never prove it.'

‘I can prove that Cariye Lala didn't do it.'

‘I don't believe you.'

‘She didn't take the sugar ship to Hassan Aga's room that night. Someone else did.'

Celia took a step backwards, but the Haseki was too quick for her. She grabbed her by the wrist. ‘Who?'

‘Well, I would be mad if I told you that, wouldn't I?' Celia could feel Gulay's nails biting into her wrist. ‘And she saw the girl pick
something off the tray on the floor and put it in her mouth – it was never anything to do with the sugar ship—'

‘So we know it's a “she” then, that's a start—'

‘—you gave it to her, didn't you? Told her it was some kind of aphrodisiac, when really it was poison—'

‘Tell me who it was, or I'll kill you too.'

The circle of pain around Celia's wrist burnt into her flesh like a branding iron.

‘She died a horrible death, and it's only by a miracle he didn't die too. That was your idea of “flushing out” Cariye Lala was it? Making her see that?'

A terrible wailing sound filled the room. In the corner of her eye Celia saw a flash of green, and all at once a small figure, a naked incubus, all skin and bone, was flying towards them. Another flash. The Haseki dropped Celia's wrist and put her hand to her neck with a cry of pain. The pin of the emerald aigrette was sticking into her neck.

‘The little bitch … look what she's done!'

In a rage she turned and lashed out at Handan, knocking her flying back on to the bed with no more effort than if she had been swatting a fly. Blood, black as tar, began to trickle from the wound in her neck. ‘You'll pay for this!'

The Haseki stepped backwards, one hand raised to strike the now cowering figure of Handan, when all of a sudden Celia saw her freeze. For a moment the Haseki stood there as if petrified, her mouth forming a little ‘O' of surprise, and then just as suddenly she pitched forwards, prostrating herself on her knees and rubbing her face in the dust.

‘It's too late for that, Gulay,' said a familiar voice.

A panel on the wall where Handan's robes had hung on pegs had opened silently behind them.

‘I am very much afraid,' the Valide said, standing on the threshold, ‘that you are the one who is going to pay.'

Safiye, the Valide Sultan, the Mother of God's Shadow Upon Earth, sat in a kiosk in the palace gardens, looking down over the confluence of the Bosphorous and the Golden Horn. A breeze ruffled the surface of the waters with tiny foaming waves, turning them from turquoise to purple to pearl. When it blew in her direction, faint sounds, like the hammering of carpenters, could be heard in the distance.

‘They say that the Sultan's gift from the English embassy will be ready for us to see today,' she said to her companion. ‘Can you hear them, Kaya Kadin?'

Celia nodded. She too had heard the sounds of the workmen at the Aviary Gate.

‘They say it is an organ that plays music by itself, and a clock, too, with the sun and moon, and angels blowing trumpets, all manner of marvels.'

‘Will it please the Sultan?'

‘Oh yes, he is very fond of clocks.'

‘Then the English embassy will find favour?'

‘You mean, will they have their Capitulations, the right to trade freely within our lands?' Safiye Sultan shifted slightly on her cushions. ‘The French have always claimed that right, and they're not going to give way easily. They say the French ambassador has given the Grand Vizier a present of six thousand chequins not to give in to the English demands …' She let the thought hang in the air between them. ‘But I wouldn't worry about these English merchants, they are
very resourceful, I've always found.' Safiye picked up a crimson damask rose, which had been left by the tray of fruit and sweetmeats at her side, and held it to her nose thoughtfully. ‘And they too have friends.'

For a few moments the two women contemplated the view below them, the water and cypress trees. All around the kiosk walls jasmine grew, perfuming the breeze. Celia breathed in the sweet air, with its scent of sea salt and flowers, and for a moment, she could almost believe that her time in the House of Felicity had always been like this, a place of beauty and courtesy, where she had never been afraid. She looked at the Valide, at the creamy courtesan's skin, almost unlined, despite her age; at the Sultan's tribute of turquoise and gold hanging at her ears and around her neck. But for all that there was something strangely
simple
about her, Celia thought. How very still she always sat, her pure profile turned towards the horizon. Always watching, always waiting – for what?

Celia looked down at her hands, wondering how to begin. Was it permissible to ask questions? Was that why she had been brought here? Ever since the incident in Handan's room she had heard nothing, not a hint, not even a whisper, of what was to happen to them all.

‘Majesty?' The word was out before she could change her mind.

‘Yes, Kaya Kadin?'

Celia took a deep breath.

‘The women, Handan and Gulay Haseki, what will become of them?'

‘Handan will recover eventually, I'm sure of it. It was a mystery for a long time, even to me, why she was made so ill by the opium. And then we began to suspect that it was Gulay who always found a way to bring her more. That's when I moved Handan to the room above my apartments, the safest place I knew, but even then she found a way, down the old corridors, the ones that have been sealed off since the old Sultan's day.'

‘What will happen to her?'

‘Gulay? She'll be sent to the old palace, where she can do no more harm.'

‘She won't be the Haseki any more?'

‘No!' The Valide gave a short laugh. ‘She will certainly not be Haseki any more. The Sultan has decided, on my advice, that there is
to be no Haseki. After what she did, she was lucky to escape with her life.'

Celia looked around her at the little kiosk with its white marble walls – the very same place where she had sat and talked with Gulay the first time.

‘I believed everything she said,' she shook her head in disbelief, ‘everything.'

‘Don't be angry with yourself. So did many people.'

‘How did you know that Gulay knew about the Nightingales of Manisa?'

‘Well, in a curious way you told me. Do you remember the day Gulay sent for you? It was then that she began to hint to you about the Nightingales, wasn't it? Don't look so surprised, Hanza reported it to me.'

‘I remember, she was one of the servants who brought the fruit.'

‘Hanza had very good hearing,' Safiye said drily. ‘She didn't know what any of it meant, of course. But on Gulay's part, it was a very bad mistake.'

‘So you sent Hanza to …' Celia searched for the right word, ‘watch Gulay?'

‘No, I sent her to watch you.'

‘Me?'

‘Aren't you forgetting something? You and your friend Annetta were a gift to me from the Haseki in the first place. And from the start you were unusual girls; most of the
kislar
come here when they are very young. I myself was only thirteen. I always wondered what was the real purpose of Gulay's gift; what she might try to use you for. And I was right, wasn't I? It's not so difficult to work it out. When men go hunting in the mountains they often use one animal to trap another …'

‘So is that what I was? A trap?'

‘Something like that,' the Valide gave one of her dazzling smiles, ‘but does it matter now? It's all over, Kaya Kadin.'

Still holding the rose between two fingers, she lapsed into reverie, scanning the horizon on the Asian side of the Bosphorous.

‘I'm not looking for mountains, if that's what you think,' she said after a while, reading Celia's mind. ‘I stopped looking for them long ago. Unless you call that a mountain,' she exclaimed suddenly. ‘Look!'

On a terrace far below them two figures came walking slowly through the trees. Although he stooped a little now and walked haltingly, one was the familiar outline of the Chief Black Eunuch; beside him was the much smaller figure of a woman, in the simple dress of a palace servant.

‘My Nightingales. That's what they used to call us, you know, when we first became slaves.' Closing her eyes, the Valide stroked the velvety petals of the rose against her cheek. ‘Oh! You can't imagine how very, very long ago it all seems now. We could all sing you see …' Her voice tailed off.

The hint of sadness in the Valide's voice made Celia brave.

‘And what of Cariye Lala? Will she be safe?'

‘I have spoken to the Sultan,' was all the Valide said.

And Celia, knowing better than to question her any further, fell silent again.

‘She is happy, look at her,' Safiye Sultan said. ‘His little Lily, that's what he always called her.
My
little Mihrimah. She may look old to you, but she'll always be little Mihrimah to me. She was so small, so frightened. A frightened child. I told her, I'll always look after you, I'll teach you every hunting trick I know. But in the end it was she who saved me.'

Celia followed her gaze. The two figures paused; they did not speak much, but stood close together, looking out towards the open sea, to the ships sailing like paper cut-outs on the distant horizon.

‘Is it true that she loved him?' Celia's words were out before she could stop them.

‘Love?' A faint look of puzzlement came over the Valide's face. ‘What has love to do with it? Love is for poets, foolish child. With us, it was never about love; it was about survival. She saved him too, you know. Or so he always believed.'

‘How?'

‘Once, long ago. In the desert.'

‘In the desert?'

‘Yes. After they gelded him. A long, long time ago.'

The Valide picked some petals from the rose and tossed them swirling into the breeze. ‘His Lily. His Lala. His Li.'

And me? What about me? Celia shifted in her seat. Surely, she thought, surely she is going to say what will happen to me? But the
Valide said nothing. Below them the water traffic plied its way between the two shores of the Golden Horn. From the Aviary Gate the sound of hammering had stopped. It seemed very silent now in the still afternoon garden.

At last Celia could bear it no longer.

‘These Capitulations—' she began, recklessly.

‘What of them?'

‘I've heard it said that they are not just trading rights.'

‘Oh?'

‘That under their terms any Englishman who has been captured is to be released, provided that the purchase price is paid back in full. Is that so?'

‘It was so, yes. But you must remember that treaty has not been in operation these last four years, ever since the death of the old Sultan, and has not been renewed yet.'