The Aviary Gate (16 page)

‘Yes, her doorway is opposite mine,' Celia pointed across to the other side of the courtyard. ‘Just over there.'

‘Is that so?' With her eye still to the crack in the door, Annetta grew very still. ‘There's a small dome just over her room, so it must be on two floors …' She craned her neck, trying to see further into the courtyard. ‘Very clever: it must have at least three entrances. Her rooms must connect with the Valide's bathhouse as well …'

‘Yes, they do.' Celia came and stood behind her. ‘At night, I can see the stars from here,' she said. ‘It reminds me of being with Paul, on my father's boat. Paul knew all the stars.'

‘Oh, forget about the stars, you stupid girl,' Annetta snapped. ‘Forget everything from the past.'

‘I can't.'

‘You must.'

‘How? How can I?' Celia demanded, stricken. ‘I am nothing without the past—'

‘Of course you are, you feather-head,' Annetta countered fiercely. ‘You'll be a person with a future.'

‘Don't you understand?' Celia sat down, clutching her stomach. ‘I dream about him every night, about Paul … why, I even thought I almost thought I saw him the other day, saw them all,' she said sadly, remembering the sugar ship, and the little figures in the rigging, certain now that they could not have been real.

‘Better not to sleep in that case,' Annetta turned to Celia, her face hard. ‘How many times do I have to tell you? The past is no good to you here,
capito
? Your dreaming will get you nowhere.'

Celia looked at Annetta thoughtfully. How she had clung to her during those first days and weeks of their captivity. The temper of a devil, the Ottoman corsairs had said, and had considered throwing her overboard, as they had the only other women on board, the two nuns from Annetta's convent with whom she had been travelling and who were too old to sell even for a minimal profit in the slave markets of Constantinople. But it was precisely Annetta's temper, Celia knew, her temper and her dangerous, fiery wits, that had saved them. Annetta always seemed to know what to do: when to fight, and when to cajole; when to sparkle and be noticed; when to make herself invisible. Somehow she had managed to play off every person they met against every other, even the woman slave dealer, from whose house in Constantinople they had been sold at last, nearly two years later, as a gift for the Valide from the Sultan's favourite.

The dark and the fair together, mistress
. Celia remembered how Annetta had twined her arm lasciviously around Celia's waist, pressed her cheek against Celia's cheek.
Look, we could be twins
. Against overwhelming odds, it had been she who had kept the two of them together.

But now? Watching her, Celia felt her own sense of disquiet grow. She had never seen Annetta so on edge. She had actually wept, she recalled with astonishment, at the news of the Chief Black Eunuch. Celia had never seen Annetta weep before. If Hassan Aga died, what of it? He was feared equally by almost all the
cariyes
. Who in the harem, she wondered, would mourn his passing? Not Annetta, surely?

‘Do you ever see her? The Haseki, I mean.' Annetta was peering curiously through the crack in the doorway.

‘Gulay Haseki? Well, they only moved me here two days ago, so no, not yet – not here anyway. But I expect I will. When the Sultan sends for us – for her – the Mistress of the Girls has to escort her across the courtyard, and hand her over to the eunuchs,' Celia shrugged. ‘Mostly she keeps to her room. We're not really supposed to go anywhere. There's nothing else to do.'

In the courtyard it was unnaturally quiet. Even Celia began to feel it now. A pair of doves sitting on the rooftops called to one another, their ruffling call breaking the still air.

Annetta shivered suddenly, her face looked pinched. ‘They say she's not well. The Haseki, I mean.'

‘Do they?' Celia answered her sadly. ‘They say lots of things in this place.' A memory came to her of the candlelit room, and the concubine, Gulay, weeping at his feet. She shook her head slowly. ‘The Sultan loves her, that's all I know.'

‘Love? What does
he
know about love?' Annetta said in a disgusted tone. ‘What does anyone in this place know about love? You don't think that
you
– tempting little morsel that you are – are being offered up so that he can fall in love with you, do you?'

‘No.' Celia sighed again. ‘I am not such a fool as to think that.' A blade of sunlight came through the crack in the doorway, slicing through the dim interior of the little room, to where she sat on the edge of the divan. She put her hand out, watching as it illuminated the paleness of her skin, the fine reddish-gold hairs. ‘But I was in love once.'

‘Love? I tell you there's no such thing.'

‘Yes,' Celia insisted. ‘There is.'

Annetta looked at her. ‘You think you were in love with your merchant, I suppose?'

Celia ignored her taunt. ‘My father wanted us to marry.'

‘Lucky goose, most fathers don't consider such fine feelings when they choose a daughter's husband. So why didn't you marry him then?'

‘You know why not,' Celia answered her. ‘We were to marry in England. I was on my way back there from Venice in my father's ship when … Well, you know what happened.'

‘It's just as well you didn't marry before,' Annetta added heartlessly, ‘or you might have been thrown overboard with the nuns.' And then, sensing that she might have gone too far this time, she added in a softer tone. ‘Well then? Tell me about him, although it isn't as though I haven't heard it all before,' she put one hand on her hip, ‘just don't go getting all green-sick on me, that's all. He was a merchant, no?'

‘A friend of my father's.'

‘An old man then?
Faugh
!' Annetta wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘But very rich, you said?' she added hopefully. ‘I tell you, I'd never marry a man who wasn't rich.'

‘No, no, he wasn't old at all,' Celia said.

‘But he
was
rich?'

‘And clever, a scholar. And kind.'

And he loved me, her heart cried out. He loved me, and I loved him, right from the beginning. She remembered the time when they had met in the merchant Parvish's garden in Bishopsgate. It was on the eve of her voyage to Venice, two years before the shipwreck. She was eighteen. He had not recognised her, she had grown so much.

‘Don't you know me, Paul?' she had laughed, giving him a curtsey.

‘Celia? Celia Lamprey?' he said, frowning into the sun. ‘Why, look at you. Have I really been gone so long?' He held her at arm's length. ‘Why, look at you—' he said again, his eyes dancing at her, and then he stopped, as if he did not know what to say.

‘Shall we go in?' she said at last, hoping her reluctance would not show.

‘Well,' he seemed to consider this carefully, ‘your father's still in with Parvish.' Paul looked back towards the house. And then, offering her his arm, ‘I hope you're not grown too fine a lady to take a turn with me first?'

Celia remembered the startling blue of the lavender beds; the silvery-green leaves of pleached hornbeams in the walled garden. The way he had looked at her, as if he were seeing her for the first time. What had they talked about? Venice, his travels, Parvish's box of curiosities … He was going to show her the curiosities – there was a unicorn's horn and a lock of mermaid's hair amongst them, she remembered – but somehow there had been too much else to talk about …

When Celia came out of her reverie, Annetta was still standing at the door.

‘A clever, rich merchant – now that's something,' Annetta was saying. ‘And not old!
Madonna
, no wonder you still believe in love. So would I, if I ever met such a paragon. And don't tell me, he was handsome as well?' Annetta's eyes sparkled. ‘Did he have nice legs? You know, I've often thought even I could marry a man if he had nice legs.'

With an effort Celia composed herself. ‘Yes, he had nice legs,' she smiled.

‘And did he speak sweetly to you? Ah, don't say it – I can tell by your face that he did.' She shook her head pityingly. ‘My poor goose.'

Celia was silent. ‘He had to go on a voyage, just a few weeks before we set sail,' she volunteered after a while. ‘In fact, I believe he came here, to Constantinople. With the Queen's embassy. He was to have joined us back in England.'

‘He came here?' Something in Annetta's voice made Celia glance up. ‘You never told me that before. Here to Constantinople? Are you sure?'

‘Yes, but it was a long time ago; two years at least, and it was only to have been for a short time. He must be back in Venice now. Why?'

‘Nothing, nothing.' Annetta suddenly seemed struck by a thought.

‘Celia …?'

‘What now?'

‘Does he know you are dead?'

‘Does he know I am dead!' Celia almost laughed. ‘But I'm not dead, in case you hadn't noticed. What a thing to say! You mean, would he have heard about my father's boat? I should think so,' she said drily, ‘half of it was his merchandise.'

‘But what about us?' Annetta's eyes glittered. ‘Celia, have you ever wondered if anyone knows what really became of us?'

‘There was a time when I never thought about anything else.' Celia looked at her sadly. ‘But you cured me of that, remember? No looking back, you said. If we're going to survive this, there must be no looking back.'

‘Yes, yes, you're right of course.'

That nervous gesture again, the plucking at her throat.

‘What is it, Annetta?' Celia looked at her curiously. ‘You seem so strange today.' She tried to put her arm around her, but Annetta shrugged her away.

‘Celia, there's something I've been meaning to tell you … but I don't know how to …' She seemed to struggle over the words, speaking as if to herself. ‘But no, no, not now. I'm sorry, but it's too late, too late …'

Then suddenly she stopped. She drew away from the doorway, her body tense. ‘Look out! Someone's coming.'

From the gateway that connected the Valide's courtyard to the eunuchs' quarters a woman now came walking. Despite being unveiled she was dressed for the street: a short stout figure, with a long black robe over her dress.

‘Esperanza!' Annetta whispered. ‘Esperanza Malchi.'

There were many
kiras
connected to the palace – women, mostly Jewesses, who earnt their living by carrying out small commissions for the harem women, and who by virtue of their non-Muslim status, passed with relative freedom between the palace and the city – but Esperanza, it was well known, worked only for the Valide.

‘I don't like her. She has all the eunuchs in her pocket, and no one seems to know exactly what she does,' Annetta said, frowning, ‘and if you ask me it's probably better not to ask.'

The woman made her way slowly across the courtyard. She had a stick in one hand, a cane topped with silver, as she walked she swayed a little, listing from side to side.

‘Look at her, hideous old trubkin,' Annetta scowled. ‘Bunions, I expect. They all get them. Haven't you noticed that all old women here walk like that, like geese treading on egg shells?'

Although she could hardly have said why, a knot of fear rose suddenly in Celia's throat. ‘Quiet, she'll hear you!'

Halfway across the courtyard, the woman stopped and looked around her, and then, apparently satisfied that there was no one in view, she hobbled with surprising speed straight for Celia's door.

Instinctively, the two shrank back into the shadows. Annetta flattened herself against the wall, whilst Celia found herself pressed up awkwardly behind the back of the door.

Outside there was a small shuffling sound and then silence. Celia closed her eyes. Nothing. The woman must have her hand on the open door. Then, at last, a soft creak. The door opened tentatively another few inches and then stopped. Celia could feel the blood racing in her head. She felt as if she were suffocating. Finally she could bear it no longer. She opened her eyes again, and nearly screamed.

An eye was staring at her through a hole in the lattice work. In terror, Celia stared back. Her heart was hammering so loudly in her breast the woman must surely hear it. And yet her head was saying: what madness is this? Why are we hiding? I have every right to be here. I must open the door, Celia thought, confront the woman
herself. But somehow she could not. Every instinct screamed at her to remain still. But it was no good; slowly she felt the backs of her knees begin to give way beneath her.

And just then, evidently satisfied with what she had seen, Esperanza suddenly retreated. She pulled the door close-to, adjusting it carefully so that it was exactly as it had been before, and in her strange listing gait made her way across to the other side of the courtyard. At the entrance to the Haseki's apartment she stopped again, and without looking round this time, scratched softly at the door.

At once the door opened. From beneath the folds of her billowing black robes Celia saw the woman draw out a lumpy-looking package. An unseen hand took it from her and the door closed again, as silently as it had opened. Esperanza Malchi continued on her way, her stick tapping against the stone.

For a few minutes after she had disappeared from sight, there was silence. Then Annetta began to laugh. ‘Your face! Dear Lord, what a goose you are! You look as if you've seen a ghost.'

‘She looked at me.' Trembling, Celia sunk to the floor. ‘I swear she looked right at me.'

‘You looked so funny!' Annetta sprawled against the cushions on the divan, one fist crammed into her mouth.

‘Do you think she saw me?'

‘Of course not, it's so bright out there she wouldn't have been able to see a thing. It would have seemed as black as the grave in here.'