SERAGLIO

SERAGLIO Page 11

by Colin Falconer

  'How did you get out of the Harem?'

  'It was all arranged by the Kislar Aghasi. Suleiman is disposing of all his women …'

  'It's not true!'

  'Hürrem has persuaded him that he no longer needs his Harem! Abbas arranged for me to marry an Aga in the Spahis of the Porte. His name is Abdul Sahine Pasha. He is a big brute of a man with a beard and his member is as thick as my wrist!'

  Julia clapped her hand to her mouth.

  'I don't mind. He treats me well enough. I think he prefers the boys, I don't know. He is not so bad. I could even grow to love him, if he were not a man.' She rested her head on Julia's shoulder. 'I have missed you so! Perhaps it is wicked to say so, but while you were there I was happy in the Harem. Happier than I was any time in my life.'

  'So was I, Sirhane.'

  'I truly thought you were dead.'

  'How did you find out I was still alive?'

  'It was on the morning that I was to leave the Harem. The Kislar Aghasi came to me and told me you had not drowned after all. He said you were here in Pera, married to a Venetian.'

  'Abbas told you?'

  'I thought the Sultan had put you in a sack and tossed you in the Bosphorus! For six years I mourned you. I still cannot believe it is you!' She threw her arms around Julia's neck and kissed her. 'What happened? How did you survive?'

  'It's a long story,' Julia said, wondering if it would ever be safe to tell her.

  'And to marry a gentleman from the Comunità!'

  'We are not married and he is more pirate than Venetian gentleman. Still, look at us, whoever would have thought that we would have come this far!'

  ***

  The sun dipped below the seven hills, and the calls of the muezzin rose from the dusky, dusty city. Light pooled like liquid gold on the Horn as the silhouettes of the cypress trees faded into the gloom below the walls of the seraglio. Julia and Sirhane sat on the terrazzo, talking in whispers.

  'Is it really true?' Julia said. 'Suleiman has married off his entire Harem?'

  'Yes. There is no more honey in the honeypot. All that remains is Hürrem and her household. The Laughing One has a hundred slaves in waiting now, so she has plenty to laugh about. She comes and goes whenever she likes, thirty eunuchs trail along in her wake wherever she goes.'

  'If a snake can survive so long among vipers, it deserves to grow long.'

  'The Kislar Aghasi told me she was the reason the Sultan ordered you drowned.'

  Abbas, Julia thought. She wished she deserved his devotion. If only there was a way she could help him as he had helped her.

  How did you escape?' Sirhane said.

  Should I tell her? Julia thought. She did not want to endanger Abbas, but Sirhane must have already guessed. She told her everything. 'So that is what happened. What hand Hürrem had in it I do not know. But anyway I am alive now, so I try to forget about it.'

  Sirhane looked disappointed. 'Poor Abbas.'

  'I try not to think about it. He may look like a monster, Sirhane, but he has a heart like a mountain. He is the bravest and most devoted man I have ever known or even heard of.'

  'How he must suffer.'

  'That is perhaps why he contrives to always look so fearsome. To disguise it.'

  'And that witch of Suleiman's. You should try to be more hateful. It is not becoming for a woman not to be spiteful.'

  Julia shook her head. 'What Hürrem does cannot affect me now.'

  'Then you are the only one in all the Empire who is not intimidated by her. Foreign ambassadors include gifts for her as well as the Sultan now. They even send her letters to try and sway her opinion. The viziers, muftis and Agas pay her tribute through the Kislar Aghasi. Even my husband does it. He says she is more powerful than Ibrahim ever was.'

  Julia smiled. 'Poor Suleiman.'

  Sirhane curled her legs beneath her, curling into the divan like a pampered kitten. 'What was he like?'

  Julia was reluctant to talk about it.

  'Tell me!' Sirhane urged her.

  'He hardly said a word. He took off my clothes and then he lay on top of me.'

  'And it's not big?'

  'No.'

  'Only they say it's really huge.'

  'Sirhane …' Julia spread her hands helplessly, amazed as she always had been to be discussing such things so shamelessly with her. 'He lay on top of me and he made some noises. Then he rolled off again. Nothing happened.' She remembered how Ludovici had made love to her that first time. Until then she had not realized why Suleiman had been so angry with her.

  'The Sultan is impotent?'

  Julia grabbed her wrist, alarmed. 'If you ever say those words again outside this room we will all be killed!'

  'The best gossip I ever had and I cannot tell anyone!'

  'It will mean our heads!'

  'I know. You don't have to shout.' She pouted. '… What is it like with Ludovici?'

  Julia hesitated. 'Not the way it was with us.'

  Sirhane seemed pleased with this answer. She watched the lamps flickering to life in the old city as the echoes of the muezzin faded into the gathering violet dusk. A stillness settled over the city. 'I must go,' she said.

  'So soon?'

  'I should not be here at all. If Abdul ever found out, I might end up in a sack myself.'

  ***

  Julia watched Sirhane get back inside her anonymous black carriage. I did not escape the Harem, she thought. I brought it here with me. It was both my captivity and my liberation. It plunged my soul into mortal sin and brought my body to life. Now Sirhane has come back into my life, the Harem will rule me again.

  Would they become lovers again? Sirhane called it adultery without consequence. Was it a sin to love another woman that way?

  She saw a slight movement of the black taffeta curtains and knew Sirhane was watching her also. She waved, though she knew she could not see her. Then the carriage clattered away through the gates and the loneliness returned.

  Chapter 28

  Fate had been kind to Ludovici Gambetto.

  Almost.

  He had powerful and influential friends at the Sublime Porte and his business had prospered beyond all imagining. Fortune had also delivered him a beautiful mistress from a noble Venetian family.

  Yet within these silver caskets were slivers of real pain. His good fortune was founded on his best friend's anguish; Julia belonged to him only because she could not belong to anyone else.

  Even after eight years he was still not reconciled to the fact that his oldest friend now lived in the Sultan's palace as a eunuch and a slave. And then there was Julia; useless currency to anyone but him and the source of endless self-recrimination also. He had lied to Abbas and kept her here in Stamboul despite his friend's entreaties to get her out of the city, and out of the Osmanli empire. Abbas had never spoken a word to him about it but he guessed that he knew about the deception. He could still see it in his eyes every time they met. The guilt of his own duplicity gnawed at him.

  If only it had all been worth it; if only she could love him a little.

  A part of him - the part that was still Venetian - said that it did not matter. She was his, she was beautiful, his to bed and enjoy whenever he chose. What else could he want?

  But the renegade in him was not happy with this. What was it that he wanted then? He wanted her to feel the same for him as he felt for her. He wanted her devotion. Perhaps he was more like Abbas than he ever knew.

  He had built a new palazzo on the heights of Pera, dressed Julia in the finest velvets and put rubies and diamonds on her fingers. No one saw them, of course, for she was never allowed to be seen. The colony knew he kept an Italian mistress, and he had heard her identity was the source of much gossip. It amused him to hear the names they came up with. One of them was a former mistress of the Pope himself. It didn't matter; they would never invite him to their houses anyway.

  ***

  He stood on the terrazzo and watched her. She was down in the garden, reading. T
he summer flowers were still in bloom, and the air heavy with the scent form the umbrella pines. He went down the marble steps to join her. She looked up. 'You look pleased with yourself,' she said.

  'No, I cannot take the credit.' He sat down beside her. On the harbor the caïques criss-crossed the bright water, the violet silhouettes of the mosques silhouetted against the shore.

  'What has happened?'

  'I have heard whispers form the Porte. They say Rüstem Pasha is to marry the Sultan's daughter.'

  'Mihrmah?'

  'That's the whisper.'

  'Then he will almost certainly be the next Vizier.'

  'Yes.'

  'That pleases you?'

  'If I were on the side of the angels, it would not. But I am only a humble merchant and I cannot afford to be on God's side in this. I have not really been on the side of Heaven since I left Venice. Perhaps not even there. That is why I have all this.'

  'That is a blasphemy, Ludovici. And I still do not understand.'

  'Suleiman's Vizier, Lütfi Pasha, is too difficult to do business with. He is too honest.'

  'A fatal flaw in a Vizier.'

  He smiled. 'Indeed. Rüstem on the other hand would sell his own mother for ten per cent commission. For fifteen, his grandmother and his canary.'

  'He will be excellent to your purposes, then.'

  'I am sure he will be a great success.'

  'And therefore you can send more caramusalis through the Dardanelles without fear of inspection. But what made Suleiman choose Rüstem for such a wonderful match?'

  'His charm and good looks?'

  But Julia had already worked it out. 'Hürrem!'

  'Yes that is what they are saying in the bazaars. Time will tell. Though what he has done to deserve her patronage I can only imagine.' He studied her. Something different about her today, a bloom in her cheeks that had not been there before. 'You had a visitor yesterday,' he said.

  She could not meet his eyes. 'Is that wrong?'

  'Who was it?'

  'A girl. She was an odalisque at the seraglio, as I was.'

  'You were friends there? But how did she know …?'

  'Abbas.'

  'He told her?' He sat up straighter. 'Abbas told her about you?'

  'He wanted her to know that I was safe.'

  'Nothing is ever safe. Now that someone else knows about you, you are even less safe.'

  She threw down her book. 'You pin me to the wall like a butterfly. Sometimes I would rather be dead!'

  Ludovici was shocked to silence. Julia seemed to regret her outburst almost at once. 'I am sorry. I know there is nothing you can do. It is not your fault.'

  Ludovici hung his head. 'No, what you say is correct. I have no right. I have kept you locked away like this for my own selfish … ' He reached for her hand. 'I have been thinking about this lately. I have a vineyard in Cyprus. You could go there and live under another name. You would not have to live like a prisoner there.'

  'You could give me another name but someone there would recognize me. When they knew what had happened to me, they would treat me like a whore.' She drew herself up. 'I would rather stay here.'

  He shook his head. This was unexpected. 'But why?'

  'I like it here. I do not wish to go to Cyprus.'

  I should just put her on a boat and make her go, he thought. That is what Abbas would have me do. Was she finally starting to feel something for him or was there some other reason? He never knew what went on behind those angel's eyes.

  Ludovici lapsed to silence as he contemplated the best way to tell her his next piece of news. 'There is something you should know,' he said finally.

  'Is it bad news?'

  'I don't know what you will think of it. It's about politics.'

  'Politics?'

  'Julia, you will remember that I told you, two years ago Suleiman's navy defeated the our Republic's fleet at Prevezzo.'

  'Yes, I remember.'

  'Venice is a city built on the sea and for the sea. It needs command of the ocean to survive. Suleiman is slowly choking it to death. The only Venetians who have welcomed this state of affairs are men like me, here in Pera. We can charge a lot more for our wheat.

  'How does this affect me?'

  'There is a legation arriving soon from Venice. They have come to see the Sultan, to sue for peace.' He hesitated. 'Your father heads the legation,' he said.

  She turned white. 'My father? He is coming here to Stamboul?'

  'He is expected any day.'

  'Will he come here?'

  'I doubt that. The Comunità consider me little better than a pirate.'

  'You did not imagine that I would wish to see him?'

  'No, I did not think so. But I thought you should know.'

  She closed her eyes. 'What about Abbas?'

  Do you want me to inform him of this?'

  'Why would you not?'

  'Abbas has become a powerful man. Ambassadors to the Sublime Porte have been thrown into the dungeons at Yedikule before now. Your father could be in danger.'

  Her eyes glittered with venom. 'You do not think I would wish to protect him after what he did? Yes, I should like Abbas to know, very much. In fact, I should like to tell him myself.'

  Ludovici had not expected that. A meeting between Julia and Abbas? But he supposed it was about time. 'I will see if I can arrange it,' he said.

  Chapter 29

  Galata

  The carriage was just an oblong box on wheels, painted with flowers and fruit, no different from a hundred others in the city. It clattered through the filthy alley and stopped outside an anonymous two storey house painted yellow, like all the others in this predominantly Jewish quarter. A page opened the door and Julia stepped out.

  She, also, was anonymous beneath her ferijde, the long sleeved cloak worn by all Turkish women in the street. It was black silk, the only clue to her station in life; poor women wore alpaca, while women of the court wore lilac or rose silk. She wore two veils; the gauzy yashmak that covered her face nose and mouth and then over that a black cazeta that fell from her head to her waist, with just a square cut hole for her eyes.

  She hurried into the house, leaving her pages to wait by the coach.

  Abbas.

  He was even more obese than when she had known him as the Kislar Aghasi in the Harem and unrecognisable as the beautiful boy who had courted her in Venice. He was sweating, even though it was still early morning and not yet warm. He dabbed at the pillows of fat bunched under his chin with a silk handkerchief. Sweat stained the edges of his huge white turban.

  She tried to reconcile her memory of the passionate, bronzed boy on the gondola with this nightmarish creature with one white vacant eyeball and bloated face. This ugly falsetto eunuch who had grimaced with outrage at their very first meeting inside the Harem and whispered such strange endearments as she waited to die one early morning by the Bosphorus was the same boy who wanted to her to run away with him when she lived in Venice.

  This was still her Abbas.

  He looked up and stared at her in astonishment. 'Who are you?' he said. But she guessed that he already knew. He tried to struggle to his feet and clapped his hands for his pages to come and assist him.

  After they had him back on his feet he sent them outside. 'Julia,' he breathed.

  She lifted the cazeta, let it fall behind her, like a cape. Then she unpinned the yashmak. 'Hello Abbas.'

  He covered his face with his hands and turned his back to her. 'You should not have come,' he moaned.

  'I had to see you once more.'

  'I told Ludovici I never wanted to see you again. Why do you wish to humiliate me like this?'

  'Please, Abbas …'

  'If you knew the pain you cause me, you would not have done this!'

  She felt like a fool. How did she think this meeting could go otherwise? 'Abbas … ?'

  'Why did you come here? Why did Ludovici allow this?'

  'Please turn around.'

  'So
you can gaze on my beauty?'

  'Abbas, I do not care how you look. I have always loved you and I still do.'

  'Stop it!'

  'Turn around. Please.'

  When he turned back to her his face was mottled and his one good eye stared at her with grief and with outage. 'Go away! What good can this do now? My love for you has cost me everything! Just let me forget, for pity's sake!'

  'Abbas, I never had the chance to thank you … you saved my life.'

  'I did because I loved you. You do not need to thank me. How will you return my love? With your kisses? Will you take me to your bed? Shall we become lovers at last?'

  Julia took a step towards him to try and comfort him but he held out a hand to stop her. 'Don't,' he said.

  'Abbas …'

  'Can you even imagine what it is like for me? There is no release for me, ever. I want to love and be loved, but that can never happen. I am a slave and even less than a slave. There is no hell after death, Julia, it is here, it is now and it is where I reside every day and every night.' His rage spent he slumped against the wall. 'Please, just go.'

  'All right. But first there is something I have to tell you. I did not come here to torment you.'

  'Tell me then and go in peace.'

  'It is about my father.'

  'Gonzaga?'

  'He is coming here to Stamboul.'

  'Coming here? How do you know this?'

  'Ludovici was informed yesterday by the bailo. La Serenissima is dispatching a peace legation to the Porte and my father will be the ambassador.'

  Abbas slipped further down the wall until he sat on his haunches on the carpet. 'So the devil approaches Paradise,' he said.

  There was nothing else to say. Julia desperately wanted to comfort him. She knelt down beside him and he did not protest as she leaned forward and gently kissed his cheek. 'I am sorry,' she whispered. 'I do love you, Abbas.'

  'I love you, too,' he said.

  She started to weep. He patted her head, gently. 'It's all right. Don't.'

  She got up, replaced the yashmak and the cazeta. She was still crying. Now that she had started, she could not stop.

 

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