Safiye flushed angrily, but she did not dare to oppose the sultan’s mother who was the most powerful woman in the entire empire.
Seeing her discomfort the valideh laughed again, and then said to Ilban Bey, “Spare nothing to prepare Marjallah for her presentation tonight to Javid Khan. I want him grateful to Murad, and when she is ready, bring Marjallah to me so I may instruct her in her deportment.”
“It will be done, gracious lady,” said the agha kislar, and he escorted the sultan valideh from the room.
For a brief moment Safiye remained behind to look once again at the woman who might have been her rival. She did not like what she saw for she knew that Nur-U-Banu was correct in her estimation of the female Marjallah. She would have been a serious threat, and Safiye wondered why the valideh had not used such a threat. With a final glance and a sigh of relief she left the spy chamber, and returned to her own spacious apartments to rest before this evening’s entertainment.
She was a beautiful woman, a Venetian of the noble family of Baffo. Her father had been made governor of the island of Corfu, and she had been on her way to join him when her vessel had been seized by pirates. She had been brought to Istanbul to be sold in the slave market of the Great Bazaar. There she had been purchased by the agha kislar’s agents, and brought to the Yeni Serai. At thirteen she had been presented to Murad who had been enchanted by her fair skin and her red hair. Red-gold hair not too unlike the hair of the slave Marjallah.
They had fallen in love, and she had borne him his only son, Prince Memhet. For several years she had kept him close to her side, and he had not looked, not even dreamed of another woman, but his mother had grown jealous of Safiye’s power over Murad. It was Nur-U-Banu, the
Lady of Light,
who had insisted that her son take other maidens to his bed. Oh, she had claimed it was all for the sake of the succession as Murad had but one child, but Safiye, whose name meant
Purity
, believed otherwise.
She had found an old recipe that had been used it was said by the sultan valideh Cyra Hafise, and her three best friends who were also kadins of Sultan Selim I, to prevent their rivals in the harem from conceiving. Together with several of her women she had brewed the concoction and seen that it was introduced into the sherbets that were drunk by her rivals, and they had indeed not conceived. Then the sultan valideh had found out, and her women were executed as a warning to her, a warning she had taken.
The sultan discovered that after several years of being faithful to one woman, he was actually quite polygamous. He enjoyed beautiful women, and he found that his appetite for them was quite prodigious. Suddenly slavegirls were bringing incredible prices on the open market in Istanbul, and the more beautiful the girl, the richer her owner became. The reputation grew as stories filtered out from the harem telling of how Murad often took two and three girls in a single night. Although he had not fathered any more sons to date he did have a houseful of little daughters. Still despite his lust for women, he had remained faithful, at least in his heart, to Safiye which was a small consolation to her.
At ease in her own apartments she lay back upon a divan, and wondered why it was that Nur-U-Banu really wanted to give Marjallah to the ambassador from the Khanate of the Crimea. Why it was she was not going to use this woman to steal Murad from her? It was not enough that she would be safe from Marjallah. She needed to know the reasoning behind the sultan valideh’s thinking. Restless she arose, and began to pace back and forth. Her handmaidens looked nervously at one another, and finally she sent them away in annoyance. What was Nur-U-Banu up to? Safiye wondered.
Finally she could bear it no longer, and so leaving her apartment she hurried to the oda of the lady Sayeste. She would not be denied entrance to such an unimportant oda. Indeed it would be deemed an honor that she deigned to visit it.
“Safiye Kadin!” Sayeste almost fell over her feet as she came forward to greet the sultan’s bas kadin. Sayeste was a Syrian of faded prettiness who had once attracted the late sultan. For some reason that Safiye could never fathom, Nur-U-Banu liked Sayeste, and when Selim II had died, Nur-U-Banu had chosen Sayeste to rule an oda of maidens who would belong to her son. Although she owed her place to Nur-U-Banu, she was painfully aware that if the valideh died it would be Safiye, the bas kadin, who would then be in charge of the harem. Not unmindful of her tenuous position she greeted Safiye warmly. “How may I be of service to you, my lady?”
Safiye looked around the room where six girls were expected to live, and she remembered her early days in the harem in an oda quite similar. “Where is the new slave, Marjallah?” she asked.
“She has been taken to the baths, my lady. Although she has not been told yet, she is to be given to the ambassador from the Khanate of the Crimea tonight at the sultan’s reception.”
“Who is she?”
“It is hard for me to speak with her, my lady. Her Turkish is very slight, and I know no other language. However she does have her own eunuch, Jinji, who can speak to her in the language of the Franks. He is quite talkative. Shall I call him?”
“Yes,” said Safrye. “Bring him to me, and then see that we are not disturbed. Do you understand, lady Sayeste?”
“Yes, my lady Safiye.”
Sayeste scurried out to find Jinji, and hurried him back into the room. He had not been far, down the dark corridor gossiping with others of his kind, attempting to gather what information he might while his mistress was at the baths.
“Hurry,” said Sayeste breathlessly. “The bas kadin would speak with you, worthless spawn of a slave mother!” She pushed him through the door to the room, and then pulling the door shut stood guard herself outside.
Jinji fell to his knees, and touched his head to the floor before the beautiful woman. “My lady,” he mumbled afraid to say anything else for he had not really been given permission to speak, and to offer his services to her would have been presumptuous on his part. It could ruin his mistress’ chance in this place.
“Tell me of your mistress, Jinji,” the bas kadin commanded, but she did not give him permission to rise. Let him speak from a position beneath her. She had learned that trick from Murad. It kept the person speaking to you at a disadvantage.
Jinji settled back upon his heels, and looked up at Safiye. “There is little that I can tell you, my lady. She arrived in Algiers in the charge of a kapitan reis named Rashid al Mansur. Brought to the jenina she was purchased by the dey for the great sum of ten thousand gold pieces to be the chief jewel in the diadem of gifts that the dey intended to present to our mighty lord, Murad, the third of that name, may Allah bless him and may he live a thousand years!”
Safiye’s lips twitched at the eunuch’s flowery speech, but she managed not to laugh outright. “But what of the woman? Who is she?”
“I can only tell you, gracious lady, that she is a woman of high rank in her land. It is all I know. She is not very open with me yet although I have pledged my devotion to her.”
Yes, thought the sultan’s bas kadin, he most certainly would have pledged his devotion to his new mistress with an eye toward getting ahead within the hierarchy of the harem. In that sense he was like her own Tahsin who had been with her almost since the beginning, and that she thought was not a bad thing. It was good for a woman entering the strange world of the harem to have a defender and a protector. Safiye remembered all too well the frightening early days of her career. She fixed the eunuch with a sharp gaze. “Do you think that you can find the apartments of the bas kadin, Jinji? When your mistress has returned from the baths you are to bring her to me. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my lady kadin,” he answered nervously.
Safiye smiled slightly, and walking past the kneeling eunuch left the room. Jinji was just scrambling to his feet when Sayeste hurried back into the room, her curiosity high.
“What did she want?” demanded the oda mistress.
“To see my mistress when she returns from the baths.” He looked concerned. “Is it safe for me to take Marjallah, my lady Sayeste? How can I not obey the sultan’s favorite, yet I fear for my lady.”
“You need not,” replied Sayeste dryly. “Your mistress is to be no threat to the bas kadin for it has been decided that Marjallah is to be given tonight to the ambassador from the Khanate of the Crimea. The harem is invited to a reception and entertainment in his honor, and the sultan wishes to give Prince Javid Khan a token of welcome. That token is Marjallah. You will, of course, accompany your mistress into the household of the prince. It will be quite a step up for you, Jinji, for I am told that the prince left his women behind when he came to Istanbul. Knowing of our justly famous slave markets he intended to begin afresh here. With no need for any other than his personal servants you will find yourself the only eunuch in the prince’s household at present. This is a great opportunity for such a young eunuch, but if you behave correctly and with wisdom you could find yourself Prince Javid Khan’s chief eunuch here in Istanbul. Not only that, if your mistress manages to attract him your fortune will be doubly made.” She smiled toothily at him.
Jinji’s mind reeled at the oda mistress’ words. This was incredible good fortune indeed! Sayeste was perfectly right. He had the opportunity to be the head eunuch in a prince’s harem! His lovely mistress had the singular opportunity to become the prince’s favorite without any competition, at least until the prince desired other women, which with luck would be shortly, and it would be he who would go to the slave markets to pick out exquisite beauties with which to tempt his new master.
“Is the prince a young man?” he asked, suddenly aware that if he wasn’t, then all his hopes were for naught. What if this prince were a tired old graybeard?
“He is not a youth,” said Sayeste, “rather he is said to be in the prime of his life.”
The eunuch nodded satisfied. Good! he thought. A man in his full vigor, and hopefully a man with a good appetite for the sweet flesh of the female of the species. “This is fine news,” he said with great understatement to the oda mistress, “and I thank you for sharing it with me. Tell me, my lady Sayeste, does my mistress know of her fate yet?”
“I do not believe that she has been told,” said Sayeste, “but I have not been informed that she should not be told so perhaps you will tell her of her fate before you take her to see the bas kadin. I wonder what the lady Safiye wants with her.”
“Should I take her then?” fretted the eunuch.
“I see no reason why not,” came the reply, but even as she spoke Sayeste was planning to send a message to the sultan valideh about this turn of events. She focused on the eunuch. “What did the lady Safiye want with you, Jinji?”
“She wanted to know about my mistress, but I could tell her little,” said the eunuch. “The lady Marjallah keeps very much to herself.”
“She is still frightened,” said the oda mistress wisely. “New captives usually react this way. Poor dear. She has certainly been hustled from pillar to post these last months. Well, once she is comfortably settled in the prince’s palace she will bloom I am certain.” She gave him a friendly, almost conspiratorial smile. “Why don’t you go to the baths, Jinji, and tell your mistress of your combined good fortunes. Then go directly to the bas kadin’s apartments from there.”
He bowed politely. “Yes, my lady Sayeste,” he said, and tried not to show how eager he was to impart his news to Marjallah by not hurrying, at least within her sight, but once out of it Jinji almost ran, racing down the staircase from the second story of the women’s quarters where the oda of Lady Sayeste was located, and along the roofed portico that opened onto the open courtyard of the women. By the time he had reached the bath he had to pause to catch his breath so that he might regain his dignity before the others. Entering the large and steamy room he stopped an attendant and politely asked, “Do you know where I may find my mistress, the slave Marjallah, who is being prepared as a gift for Prince Javid Khan? She has copper-colored hair.”
“She is being massaged at the moment,” said the attendant. “You will find her over there by the blue-tiled fountains.”
Following the direction of her pointing finger Jinji moved across the room to where he found Aidan, prone upon a marble bench, being quite skillfully massaged by a young black girl with long, supple fingers. Kneeling the eunuch whispered softly, “My lady Marjallah, I bring wonderful news!”
She turned her head, and looking at him said, “What is it, Jinji?” She did not, however, really sound very interested.
“By the greatest stroke of good fortune we are not to remain here even one night, my lady Marjallah! You will be presented tonight to Prince Javid Khan at a reception that his majesty is giving for him. That great prince is the new ambassador from the Khanate of the Crimea! He has not brought his harem to Istanbul as knowing of its famous slave markets he intended to build himself a new harem here. You are to be the first woman for that harem! Is that not wonderful news?”
Her silvery eyes widened in shock and distress, and Aidan’s hand flew to her mouth to stifle the cry that arose in her throat. Good news? Dear God, no! At least here amongst all these hundreds of women she had hoped to remain anonymous until a ransom could be arranged for her for she refused to believe that such a thing was not possible despite what everyone told her. Of course she could be ransomed, and she would be! In the meantime, however, she wanted nothing more than to remain nameless and faceless among the many women of the sultan’s harem. She had been so encouraged earlier when she had realized how large an establishment this royal palace really was. Her hopes had soared greatly when Omar had boasted as he led her and Jinji to the chamber of the lady Sayeste that Sultan Murad’s harem housed over a thousand beauties who only lived to be called to their master’s bed. She had almost shouted her relief at that juicy tidbit of information for it indicated to her she should be able to hide herself among the others until Conn could ransom her which would surely be soon.