“Just before dawn, three old women in peasant black will depart the serai through a secret gate in my private park. No one will see them, but if anyone should, who would question their presence?”
“Three?” asked Suleiman.
“I am taking Marian and Ruth with me. Marian is English and has been with me since before you were born. Her husband was an Englishman and was secretary to your father for many years. You remember him. Their daughter, Ruth, has never seen her native land. I cannot leave them behind. To those who ask, merely say it was my dying wish that they be freed and returned to their own country.”
“How will you live, my mother? I cannot have you dependent upon your brother’s charity.”
“Secretly deposit with the House of Kira the sum of twenty-five thousand gold dinars. Each year add an additional five hundred. The money will be credited to my account in Edinburgh and administered by the Kiras. As for my jewels, aside from a few parting gifts, I shall take them with me. To any who ask, say you buried them with the valideh.”
He nodded. “You have thought this out carefully, my mother. You must really want to return to your native land.”
“Suleiman, I was born a Scot, and I shall die one. But I have lived my life as a Turk, and I do not regret one moment of it If Allah gave me the choice of reliving my time as I chose, I would choose the same path again.”
He leaned across the table and took her hands in his. Gray-green eyes met green-gold ones, and he would have spoken had she not forestalled him. “No, my lion. My mind is made up. When you come to my apartments again, say nothing of this. Khurrem has placed two spies among my servants. This evening I had them removed, but I shall not be so fortunate again.”
She rose and led him to the door. “Let this be our private farewell, my son. I have loved you from the moment you were conceived. All I have done has been for you. May Allah guard and guide you in the days and years to come. Always know my thoughts and prayers are with you.”
Her slender fingers reached up and touched his face. They moved lightly from his forehead, across his eyes and nose, and down his cheeks to his short, perfumed black beard. Then, pulling his head down, she kissed him gently on the forehead.
Two days later, the harem was mildly distressed to learn that their healthy valideh had taken ill. The doctor’s diagnosis was “a mild digestive ailment” The valideh would be well in a few days’ time. But when several days had passed and her condition had not improved, concern began to spread among the inhabitants of the Eski Serai.
In her suite, Khurrem Kadin received regular reports. The valideh was pale and wan. She vomited her food and grew weak. She was now complaining of shooting pains in her head and her chest
Khurrem prayed for her antagonist’s swift demise and thought with chagrin of her two aborted murder attempts. She was extremely hard pressed to conceal her joy when word came that the Cyra Hafise, seeing the Angel of Death near her bed, had called for her coffin.
On the evening of the eleventh day of the valideh’s illness, Khurrem and her children were sent for to bid the mother of Suleiman a last farewell. Entering the bedchamber, Khurrem thought the older woman looked strangely well, but then she was not the doctor. What did it matter, so long as Cyra died? Khurrem knelt by the bedside and felt a hand upon her head.
“My daughter,” came the familiar voice—it was quite weak, the Russian noted with satisfaction. “My daughter,” the valideh repeated. “You have far exceeded my ambitions for you.” Was there a hint of mockery in the words? “But whatever our differences during these last years, I forgive you. You have been a good wife to my son and a good mother to his children. I know you will continue to be.”
For a moment Khurrem felt a twinge of regret for this woman who had lifted her from obscurity, but when her eyes met the valideh’s, she could not conceal her naked triumph, “I shall not change my ways, my mother,” she said solemnly.
Cyra almost laughed. She had been sure that Khurrem would not change her ways. Recovering herself, she turned her attention to her grandchildren. She blessed them all, beginning with her son’s heir, Prince Mustafa, who had come from Magnesia. Pulling him close to her, she whispered, “Do not trust Khurrem Kadin under any circumstances. Remember my warning. It is the only legacy I can leave you.” He nodded.
Next came Selim, still fat and nasty. He was his mother’s son and would never change. Of all her grandchildren, he was the only one she had failed to get close to. Then came Bajazet, his eyes full of tears. A good boy. He was very much like her husband. He was followed by Princess Mihrmah, silent and overawed by her part in this drama. Last was little Jahangir, whose lower lip trembled as he said, “My monkey thanks you for healing him, grandmother.”
Then they were gone, and she was left to say her final words to Suleiman in private. The sultan was visibly shaken. Grasping his sleeve, she drew him down to her, and the sound of her voice had its firm authoritarian ring.
“Listen well, my lion. These are the last words I shall say to you. Trust Mustafa and guard him well. Do not be misled by any accusation that Khurrem may make. The boy loves you and will always be loyal. If, Allah forbid the heir should die, name Bajazet, not Selim. Selim is weak and warped He is easily led by Khurrem. Bajazet is like his grandfather and Mustafa. He is wise enough to placate, but not to be influenced by Khurrem. Remember! Bajazet, not Selim. Watch over Jahangir. He is a good boy. When she is old enough, marry Mihrmah to someone who will be of use to you. A daughter is valuable in her own way. Allah’s blessings on you, my Suleiman. Now go!”
“Mother—”
“Gol”
Tears pouring down his cheeks, he left her, giving orders to her staff that when the time came, the coffin should be sealed by her two faithful slaves, Marian and Ruth. He had as his dying mother had requested, given them their freedom. They would leave the serai immedately following the valideh’s death and return to their native land.
Cyra’s servants were desolate. The valideh had been a good mistress, and they loved her. Earlier in the evening, she had called them to her one by one and had given each a small purse. Everyone connected with the sultan’s mother, from the humblest kitchen slave to the agha kislar himself, had been remembered. To each of her maidens she had also given a small piece of her own jewelry.
Within the bedchamber of the valideh, the “dying” woman arose from her couch and dressed herself in warm, sturdy garments. Pulling on a black peasant feridje, she said to her faithful Marian and Ruth, “It is time. Announce my death.”
The sobbing and tearing of garments that followed touched her.
She could not have left her dearest friends, Firousi and Sarina, without telling them the truth. Like her, they were old now, and allowing them to mourn with breaking hearts might have shortened their lives. She had told them the truth about Prince Karim several years before, and on the day of her “death” they received a message that read: “Pay no heed to the gossips of the marketplace. For the sake of peace, I have chosen to follow in Karim’s footsteps.” A secret visit from Ruth had confirmed the message. She brought with her a parting gift for them from Cyra. Even now, as it had always been, they were united.
Gazing at the things that were hers, Cyra moved through her apartment a final time. She had spent many years collecting her furnishings and decorating her home. Tenderly she ran her hand across a rosewood chest inlaid in mother-of-pearl that Selim had brought her from Egypt The valideh wondered if Khurrem would attempt to claim the Garden Court for her own. She would probably try, but as besotted as Suleiman might be by his favorite, Cyra knew he would never allow her to touch his mother’s things. The Garden Court would be closed and sealed.
In a way, it was a pity. Never again would a slipper tred softly across the thick carpets, or a hand place a taper to the lovely old lamps. No longer would the now-silent rooms gather laughter and secrets to its walls.
For a moment anger welled in Cyra Hafise. Why should she be forced in her old age from the place
and people she loved? This was her home. She had fought for it, and it was hers by right! Because her son was weak-willed in his personal relationships, she must leave him, her grandchildren, her country, and all else she held dear to return to Allah knew what in the dark land of her birth. If only she had believed Marian’s warning about Khurrem those many years ago—but no, if it had not been Khurrem, it would have been someone else.
She must put her old life behind her and reach eagerly for the new one. She was leaving Suleiman and his family; but Charles Leslie and other grandchildren awaited her in Scotland. At this moment Khurrem believed she had won the battle. My only regret, thought Cyra wryly, is that she will never know that the victory was really mine!
Dawn was beginning to pull at the shade of night when a small, overgrown gate to the valideh’s private park was opened. Three old women dressed in the black feridje and yasmak of the poor emerged and, clutching their bundles, walked out into the city. As light began to fill the eastern skies, they reached the docks and boarded a vessel flying the ensign of a foreign country. The gangplank was raised, the sails hoisted, and slowly the ship began to pull away from the shore.
In the Yeni Serai, Suleiman stood in the shore kiosk and watched as the ship sailed by him, its white sails catching the colors of the dawn. It carried his mother out of Constantinople and back to her cold, northern land.
From the minaret of the Great Mosque came the call of a muezzin. “Come to prayer. Come to prayer. The sultan valideh Hafise is dead. Come to prayer.”
Falling to his knees, the sultan of the greatest empire of its time wept.
PART V
Janet
1533–1542
40
IT WAS STILL DARE when the ship entered the Firth of Forth, and Janet Leslie, standing on the deck, smelled for the first time in almost forty years the damp land smells of earth, sea and heather that to her meant Scotland. Shivering, she gathered her sable-lined cloak about her and peered intently into the darkness. The small lump to her right would be the Isle of May. Ahead was Leith and the end of her journey. No, not the end for there was still the long overland trip to Glenkirk.
What is the matter with me, she thought impatiently. I am frightened to death of this new life. Yet, when I was stolen from my family and sold into slavery I wasn’t half so afraid. Of course I wasn’t, she answered herself. Then I was too young and innocent to know better.
“Madame!”
She started.
“Madame, you will catch your death out in this damp air. Come inside at once!”
“Marian, you frightened me.”
“I shouldn’t wonder, madame, standing out here all alone in the cold and dark. Come inside now!”
Putting an arm around Janet, Marian drew her into the warm, lighted cabin.
“Shame on you,” she scolded. That damp air could give you a chill. Do you want to be sick for your reunion with Prince Karim?”
“Charles,” corrected Janet “Prince Karim no longer exists.”
“Yes, m’lady. Now give me that cloak and come lie down. We will not dock at Leith for several hours yet”
Taking the cape she folded it lovingly and laid it on the trunk by the floor. “That Esther Kira,” she chuckled. “Imagine her having two trunkfuls of lovely new clothes in the latest French fashions made up for you. And then secretly sending them aboard before we left Istanbul! She must have had a dozen seamstresses working round the clock. And clothing for Ruth and me, also! Now at least we’ll not arrive at Glenkirk looking like beggars.” She tucked a blanket about Janet’s legs and propped pillows at her back. “There now, m’lady. Try to rest”
Janet nodded absently, then spoke. “Marian, are you sure you don’t want to go back to England? You don’t have to share my exile. You may still have family alive, and Ruth is entitled to know her people. You will never want for anything. I’ll see you have a generous yearly pension.”
Marian sniffed. “Now listen to me, madame. If I still have a family, they would not rejoice to see me. My parents would long be gone, and those of my brothers and sisters left alive have long thought of me as dead. I should have some explaining to do. You have been my family since I was seventeen. I will not leave you! My daughter,” she glanced at the sleeping Ruth, “is more than old enough to marry, but what chance would she have in England? She could not keep her entire past life a secret and people here have small minds. With you she retains her respectability and her virtue.”
“I had not thought about it” said Janet.
“No, you did not” replied her tart-tongued servant “Since we left the Eski Serai you have been sunk in self pity. The valideh Cyra Hafise is no more, but you are alive, madame, and you have not changed. Only our situation and circumstances have changed. In a few hours we will arrive in Leith; and after your brother has reported the success of his mission to the king of Edinburgh, we will be on our way to Glenkirk. In just a few days’ time you will see your son again. Will you break his heart with the sight of a pitiful, broken woman, or will you greet him happily with the knowledge that you are here by your own choice?”
“I am afraid, Marian. More afraid than I have ever been in my whole life. I do not know this world to which I am returning. I have no place in it”
“What nonsense you speak, madame! You spent the first years of your life in this world; and as for a place in it, are you not the sister of the earl of Glenkirk, the mother of Sir Charles Leslie?”
“It is not enough, Marian! I must have more! I cannot spend the rest of my days being nothing more than a doting grandmother sewing tapestries!”
“Then you must make it more, my lady. Did you not make our lord Selim love you above all women? Did you not direct Sultan Suleiman’s future? And save the life of Prince Karim so he might grow to manhood in this land? I have never known any such as you. You have the power to make things happen. My old granny came from Ireland, and she often spoke the Gaelic tongue. She had a word she used for a woman she admired. She would say that she was fit to be a ‘ban-righ.’ I never knew what it meant, but you, madame, are surely a ban-righ!”
For the first time since they had left Istanbul Janet Leslie laughed. “Ban-righ is the Gaelic for queen, dear Marian—and I thank you. You are right. No one placed me on the heights which I attained. I did it myself. I shall do it again here. I am a very rich woman now, and the first thing I will do is build myself a house. I do not intend to live with Adam and his family.”
“A good beginning, my lady, for I do not like what I have heard about the earl’s wife.”
“Marian, you haven’t even met the Lady Anne.”
“I have listened, madame. The Lady Anne doesn’t approve of this, or that, or the other. She feels that Christmas revels are wasteful. And Anne has converted the castle rose garden to a vegetable garden, and she sells them! Pah!”
Janet laughed again. “Perhaps you are right What I fear most is the strain of living under someone else’s rule. I am far too used to running my own home. I shall buy from my brother a piece of Glenkirk land, and I know just the place I want I want Glen Rae where I played as a child, the hills about it its loch, and the island in the loch. That island is just off the shore and would be ideal for a house. I shall begin as soon as we land. I can hire an architect in Edinburgh.”
“You had best make the trade with the earl legal before you return to Glenkirk, my lady. From what I’ve heard of her, the countess is a grasping woman, and when she sees her husband’s sister is no pauper, she is sure to try and get twice what you offer.”
“You have been with me so long, Marian, that you begin to think as I do. Those were my own thoughts.”
Marian smiled to herself. She knew that her mistress would be all right, for she had begun to make plans for the future. Now they could go about the business of getting settled and making a place for themselves in Scotland.
Janet had fallen asleep, her hair strewn about her face on the pillow. Lord thought Marian, she is but three years yo
unger than I, yet she still looks like a girl. Her skin is smooth and unmarked while mine is beginning to wrinkle. My poor brown eyes are fading in color, but her green ones are as bright as ever. My mouse brown hair is shot with gray, but her lovely red-gold tresses have just lightened at bit I am plump with all the good food we ate in the Eski Serai, but my lady is still willow slender. If the men of Scotland are as I remember, she will be overwhelmed with marriage offers before the year is out—especially when word of her fortune is bruited about Already Captain Kerr has made a fool of himself over her each time he’s seen her.
With all these thoughts tumbling in her head, Marian fell asleep. She awoke to the sounds of men’s feet tramping about the deck outside their cabin, Janet was gone from her bunk, but Ruth still slept She went to her and shook her.
“Wake up, daughter! We are entering the harbor.”
Ruth stretched and yawned sleepily. She was a pretty, sweet-faced girl of twenty-three with her mother’s brown hair, and her late father’s bright blue eyes. An only child she had been born when Marian, in her early thirties, had long past given up hope of having children. She barely remembered her father, who had been Sultan Selim’s private secretary and had died of a fever while on campaign with his master.
She had grown up with the sultan’s three youngest children for playmates. She was barely nine when she had helped her mother and Lady Cyra smuggle the six-year-old Prince Karim out of Turkey to safety in Scotland. It was at that point she had become a woman, for had she once slipped and even hinted at this secret, many lives would have been lost—including her own.
On several occasions after she reached puberty, she had been offered the chance of marriage. She had refused. She hadn’t wanted to leave her mother or her mistress. Ruth had inherited her father’s intelligence and her mother’s strong streak of common sense. She was virtually a free woman while a handmaiden to the sultan valideh Cyra Hafise. As the wife of a Turk, she would be cloistered from the world. Now, however, she was a free woman in actual fact and should the opportunity present itself, she would marry without hesitation.
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