“We will obey you, my lady, and go to the baths.”
Aidan nodded, but said nothing more.
They left the woman and her daughters at the public baths set aside for women only. Jinji had gone into the building with them, and instructed the head bath attendant as to what was desired by his illustrious mistress, the beloved of Prince Javid Khan. Aidan would have laughed had she heard the tale that he spun to the not easily impressed bath attendants who were quite taken in by the eunuch. He exited the baths with an enormous grin upon his face, and said to Aidan,
“We may return for them in two hours’ time. They will be in perfect order then, my lady Marjallah.”
Then he moved proudly through the crowded streets, making room for Aidan’s litter and her slaves to pass. They first went to the Bazaar of the Cloth Merchants where with Jinji’s help she picked some pretty, but practical cottons, light wools, and linens for her new servants. She tried to find attractive colors for even if the three were servants, they had female souls, and it was such little trouble to help bind them to her. Having made her purchases they moved on to the shop of a merchant who sold only the finest fabrics, and Aidan chose for herself a turquoise-colored silk with little silver stars woven into the fabric, a grass-green silk with wide stripes of gold, and a pale gold silk gauze.
The merchant was eager to be of help for Jinji quickly informed him that this was the favorite of the Sublime Porte’s new ambassador from the Khanate of the Crimea, and if her master, the very illustrious Prince Javid Khan was happy with her purchases, then the lady Marjallah would be returning. His fortune would be made for the prince could not be too generous when it came to his favorite.
Aidan understood enough of what her eunuch was saying to dissolve into laughter, but she did not embarrass her servant by reprimanding him before the merchant. Besides it amused her, and she was laughing more now than she had in months. However when they had exited the shop she said, “You are really quite wicked, Jinji. Be careful lest your galloping tongue lead you into a pit from which you cannot dig yourself out, my friend. It is only fortunate that the prince cannot hear you for I do not think he is the least bit interested in me at all right now, and if it continues where will we both be?”
“I learned something this morning, my lady, from the cook in the kitchen. Hammed says that the prince mourns his wife and his sons who are but recently dead. I was not able to learn anything more for I did not wish to pry lest I compromise your new position in the household. At least we know he is a real man, my lady. You will help him recover from his grief in time, and in the meantime, your position in his household will be secure from other women. We need that time, my lady Marjallah, so do not fret that the prince seems cool to you.”
“Poor man,” Aidan said. “I know just how he feels,” and she remembered not only her father, but the deaths of her mother and little sisters as well.
By this time they had arrived at the Street of the Used Clothing Vendors, and Jinji, who seemed to have a great deal of knowledge for someone in Istanbul only one day, went directly to the stall of a Jew he appeared to know by reputation. There he successfully bargained for a total of six outfits for Aidan’s slaves; baggy trousers, and blouses and boleros, as well as sashes, capes, and shoes. Everything was of good quality, and very clean. Having paid for his purchases they now began the return trip to the baths.
“How is it,” Aidan’s curiosity got the better of her, “that you seem to know this city so well?” she demanded of Jinji.
“My very first master lived here in Istanbul,” the eunuch answered. “I know the city very well. It is my first memory, and is like home to me. I was made a eunuch, after all, when I was very young. I love this place, and I hope for nothing better than to end my days here.”
Having reached the baths Jinji escorted his mistress into the reception room of the hamam for it would have been unthinkable for her to remain outside for any long period of time, and they could not be certain that Marta and her daughters were ready to return with them. The eunuch made inquiries, and was told it would be just a moment or two more before the three were ready. Jinji handed the bath attendant three sets of clothing with instructions that they were for his mistress’ slavewomen.
“I told them to burn those vermin-ridden rags that they were wearing when we brought them into the baths,” he said to Aidan.
She chuckled. “A very wise decision although I suspect that poor Marta will be most distressed to find the last remnant of her past life has been consigned to destruction.”
“She will survive the tragedy,” he said somewhat wryly. “What you have bought them will probably be the nicest things they have ever owned in their lives.”
“She was no poor woman,” said Aidan. “Her husband, she tells me, was a man of means.”
“More than likely she was a fisherman’s wife,” Jinji sniffed, “but no matter. I only hope she is trainable. We should have no trouble with her daughters, but a woman of her years is most likely to be set in her ways, my lady Marjallah. I hope you were right in purchasing them. You have too kind a heart, I fear.”
Then the bath attendants were leading before them three females, and both Aidan and Jinji gasped in surprise. Clean, Marta and her two daughters were handsome females with pretty brown eyes, and dark blond braids. Each was neatly dressed in light blue baggy trousers, rose-colored cotton blouses, and short boleros of a blue-and-rose-striped satin. They had pretty matching slippers upon their feet, blue-and-silver-patterned shawls tied about their hips, and little caps of cloth of silver upon their heads. They were a trio of most presentable handmaidens, and Aidan said so.
“How lovely you all look, and don’t you feel better now?”
“Well,” said Marta, “I must admit that bathing is not so bad, but all that nudity! Still we’re none the worse for wear, my lady, and I thank you for our new clothing.”
Aidan smiled. “That is but the first of many new things you have to learn. You are going to have to learn to speak Turkish, Marta, but come now. We must return to the prince’s palace before he begins to wonder what has happened to us.”
They returned to Javid Khan’s palace, and seeing it in the late-afternoon light for the first time Aidan was enchanted with it. It was called the Jewel Serai, and indeed it was placed precisely as a fine gem might be within a precious setting. Javid Khan had said it sat upon a point of land between the Bosporus and the Black Sea which was not precisely so. Actually the Jewel Serai had been built upon a spit of land very near the mouth of the Bosporus where it emptied into the Black Sea, but it was most definitely on the Bosporus. It was possible, however, to see the Black Sea easily from the palace itself, and the property belonging to it widened as one moved back from the point itself and curved into the shore of the larger body of water.
The Jewel Serai had been built of white marble, and Aidan imagined that with the sunset or sunrise tinting it golden it would be absolutely gorgeous. It sat directly on the water, its gardens to its right side and to the rear of the building. A graceful dome rose over the center portion of the building, and a pillared, open portico ran along its entire length. The private section of the palace was in the right wing of the building, the left section was open to those who might come to deal officially with the ambassador from the Khanate of the Crimea.
The Great Khan had bought the palace for his son from the heirs of a wealthy merchant who did not want it. Its distance from the center of Istanbul made it undesirable to them, and to many others who preferred living nearer the city. In the years since the merchant’s death the beautiful gardens had become overgrown, and neglected, wildflowers seeding themselves in the beds along with what had once been perfectly cultivated blooms. From the sea, however, the tangled growth was colorful and beautiful.
The eyes of Aidan’s serving women widened as they gazed at the Jewel Serai. “Is that where we are to live, my lady?” asked Marta in a voice filled with awe. “Is the prince’s harem a large one? Will there be many women?”
“The prince,” said Aidan, “is but newly come to Istanbul, and I was only presented to him by the sultan yesterday. He has no other women although he assures me that he enjoys them.” She blushed at that statement, and then continued on. “Jinji tells me that the prince mourns the loss of his wife which may account for his behavior.”
The large caïque had nosed itself into the shore, and its passengers disembarked. Watching them from a window of the building Javid Khan saw that Marjallah had three other females with her. He smiled to himself. Here was his first fact about Marjallah. She was obviously not extravagant. His favorite wife, Zoe, had been like that, never wanting more than she needed. She had been a gentle girl, a quiet girl, a girl of peace to whom all other members of his harem had turned because they trusted Zoe to solve their disputes fairly. She had been a lovely woman, mother of two of his sons, and a daughter.
Yet he had been equally attracted to the woman he had made his second wife, the mercurial Ayesha. What a marvelous contradiction Ayesha had been. One moment she would be purring like a kitten, and the next minute she would be flaming like a volcano. Her moods had both fascinated and infuriated him, but her very differences when compared with Zoe had intrigued him, kept him always coming back to her couch. Her saving grace had been that Ayesha had never held a grudge in her entire life. Her anger might flare quickly, but it was over and done with just as quickly. She also had given him two sons.
His sons.
He felt a pang of anguish ripping through him as it did each time he remembered his children. He had fathered six sons and two daughters. His eldest, Devlet, named for his own father, would have been fourteen this year. The youngest of his sons had been a chubby toddler of only two. As for his daughters, and now he felt tears pricking at the back of his eyelids, the eldest of all his children had been the daughter that he and Zoe had first created. Her name had been Oma, and she had been her mother’s image. This would have been her sixteenth year, and she had been betrothed to the heir of a neighboring khan. His youngest daughter was seven, and had been a mischievous imp called Leila.
Gone.
They were all gone now. His strong, healthy sons; his beautiful daughters, his women. It was as if they had never existed. Not a trace of them remained except in his memory, but the memories were too painful right now. He didn’t want to remember. Even a strong man could bear only so much. He focused his eyes again toward the quay, but Marjallah and her attendants had already entered the building.
He would go to the harem, and see them, and if she pleased him today he would allow her to eat the evening meal with him. He was sad, and he was lonely. He had not been happy when the sultan had so jovially presented him with Marjallah last night, but now he was beginning to have second thoughts. All the mourning in the world would not bring back his women and his children. His father had sent him to Istanbul to make a new start. To remove him from his sorrow, and although he could not entirely forget, nor should he ever, at least he could try to live again. He had never been a man for self-pity.
He strode purposefully from his apartment, and down the hall into the women’s quarters. Her eunuch—what was the creature’s name?—hurried forward to welcome him effusively. He was hard put not to smile for the eunuch was so damnably anxious to please.
“Welcome, my lord prince! Welcome!”
Aidan turned, and took her first really good look at the man who was called her master. She bowed prettily. “Welcome, my lord prince,” and remembering both the hospitality of Safiye and Nur-U-Banu said, “Bring refreshments, Jinji.” She then seated the prince where he might have a view of the sea. He was every bit as handsome as Conn, she thought, but in an entirely different way. Conn’s good looks were almost pretty in their perfection, but Javid Khan’s face was a stern one upon first glance although now as he smiled at her the severeness eased. His face was long rather than round, his chin gave the appearance of having been carved from stone so hard and determined was it. His cheekbones were very high and sculpted, and his eyes, although not narrowed as his pure Tartar ancestors had been, were almond-shaped although they were a startling sky blue in color. Bareheaded within the privacy of his own home, Javid Khan proved to have tawny gold hair.
“My lord, I am not certain if what I do is the correct thing,” Aidan said quietly. “I fear my ignorance of customs in this land will shock and repel you, and so I pray you tell me if what I do is right, and when I am wrong.”
“Are women not the same everywhere, Marjallah?” he asked her.
“From what I have seen here in Istanbul I do not believe so, my lord.”
“Elucidate to me then,” he replied.
“In my land we are ruled by a queen.”
“And her husband?”
“She has none. She is a virgin queen, but if she took a spouse, he would not automatically become king. Only she could make him so. He would be her husband only.”
Javid Khan was interested, and his face showed it. “Say on, Marjallah. Tell me more.”
“Do your women ride upon horses?”
“Once they did,” he said, “but no more. It is a woman’s role to bear her children, sons preferably, and to care for her home, her children, and her lord. That is why there is a harem. It is a safe place where a woman may live without distractions.”
“How dull for your women,” Aidan said before she realized the words, but seeing his mouth quirk at the corners in a small smile she knew she had not offended him, and continued. “Our women are not cloistered. They ride upon horses, they eat with their husbands and families, they study, they even dance with men. You cannot tell me that women here do all of those things, my lord.”
“Yet even in your land a man’s word is supreme. That much I am certain of despite what you have told me.”