Tears of Pearl

Chapter 6

“Her Excellency cannot see you now.” The smile on Jemal’s face as he met me at the arched doorway that stood at the entrance to the harem at Topkapı was undoubtedly meant to irritate. “You’re too early.”

“Which is precisely what I wanted,” I said, pulling down on the bottom of the jacket I wore, smoothing it over my fine wool corselet skirt. “I came now so as to have the opportunity to speak to you.”

“I’m sure we have very little to say to each other.”

“Tell me about your friendship with Ceyden.”

“We were the most casual sort of acquaintances,” he said. “And that only because our positions forced us to cross paths regularly.”

“Why, Jemal, must you make this difficult? I know that you were sent here to be kept away from her.”

“I was sent here because the sultan felt my talents better suited to Topkapı.”

“That’s not what Perestu told me.”

“She does not have quite so much power as she likes to think,” he said. “It’s presumptuous to assume she’d even know what my mission is here.”

“What is it?”

“Confidential.”

“And it has nothing to do with Ceyden?”

“If it did, why would I still be here after her death?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” I said. “Perhaps you could enlighten me.”

“I do not approve of what you are doing, Lady Emily. There is nothing to be gained. Ceyden is dead and cannot be helped.”

“Should she have no justice?”

“Sometimes justice brings only a worse pain.”

“So we should seek solace in lies and half-truths instead?” I asked.

“I cannot have you drawing attention to my mistress.”

“Does she have something to hide?”

“I suggested no such thing. I know only the risks of one’s actions being misinterpreted. Leave Bezime out of your game.”

“This isn’t a game, Jemal,” I said. “How could solving Ceyden’s murder threaten her?”

“Digging into any court controversy can threaten her. It’s not so long ago that the concubines of former sultans were drowned in the Bosphorus instead of being allowed a comfortable retirement.”

“Abdül Hamit would never do such a thing to a woman he looked on once almost as a mother.”

“But he stopped feeling that way for her, did he not? And why was that?”

“I couldn’t begin to tell you.”

He stood and began to pace in front of the doorway, the movement having a dizzying eff ect on me. “She is cut from all decisions, all events of importance. Is that not a precarious position?”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “A lonely one, but not dangerous.”

“She was closer to Ceyden than anyone else, raised her like a daughter. Groomed her to please the sultan.”

“Only to have her efforts thwarted by Perestu.”

“Precisely.”

“But isn’t that typical court behavior? Are not all the concubines competing for favor? It’s hardly surprising that the valide sultan would refuse to aid the cause of the one woman who might have had the position she occupies. Perestu must know full well that the sultan could have named Bezime valide.”

“I have said too much. It would be best for us all if you would cease your questions.”

“Please—” A door in the corridor swung open, Bezime standing, arms crossed, on the other side.

“Go, Jemal,” she said. “I will handle this.”

The eunuch bowed deeply to her before disappearing. Bezime beckoned for me to come in, closing the door behind me with only the slightest click as the latch caught the edge of the frame.

“Come,” she said. “I will take you to where it is safe to speak.”

We wound our way through narrow corridors and series after series of connected rooms, until we were outside of the harem, in a courtyard. Then through an ornate gate, another courtyard, and into a tiled pavilion. She sat in the center of a low divan covered with buttery smooth crimson silk that ran the length of the wall and motioned for me to join her. Despite the sun streaking through the open windows, candles flickered in the tiled nooks that lined the walls, illuminating nothing but the space immediately around them.

“I must ask you about Jemal. He says—”

“I cannot speak of him right now.” Her voice was a shredded whisper. “I’m being threatened.”

“Th reatened?”

She did not reply, but removed a small package from the folds of her skirt. With gentle hands, she untied the frayed purple bow wrapped around it, letting the well-worn fabric fall away from the object it encased, a dark blue velvet bag. From within that, she took a thin white cord. “Bowstrings like this were for uncountable years used by the bostanji, the sultan’s most trusted guards and executioners. It was with these that anyone who threatened his throne—especially members of his family—was killed.”

“Who would send you such a thing?”

“It must have come from Yıldız,” she said, stretching the string in her hands, then laying it flat on the table in front of us. “No one elsewhere would presume to use such a thing.”

“When did you receive it?”

“Not twenty minutes ago.”

“Who at Yıldız would wish you harm?”

“That is no simple question to answer. Perestu, I suppose, is an obvious suspect.”

“How so?”

“I used to be valide sultan. Perhaps that threatens her.”

“Forgive me, but you’re not any longer—surely she feels her role is secure.”

“I’m still able to communicate directly with the sultan. She may not like that, particularly as she knows it is not difficult for a woman skilled in the mysterious arts to wield a certain amount of control over a man so full of fear.”

I sat silent, skeptical of her claim of control, particularly as she’d been sent to Topkapı as an elegant banishment.

“You don’t believe me?” she asked.

“What sort of official power did you have before coming here but after Perestu had been named valide sultan?”

“I had no title, if that’s what you mean. But it is unusual for any concubine to be allowed to stay in the harem after her sultan no longer rules. I had the respect of every resident of the palace.”

“Why did you come here?”

“I had no choice. Perestu wanted me to go.”

“Which makes her an unlikely candidate to have sent the bowstring. She’s got you where she wants you.” I touched the silk, my fingers flinching at its cool smoothness. “Have you heard of anyone else receiving such a thing?”

“Never.”

“Could it have to do with your connection to Ceyden?”

“You think the killer wants me next?”

“I don’t know. Would there be a reason for him to?”

“Ceyden and I were close, as you already know. I did all I could when she was young to educate her, to train her to be everything that might please the sultan. She was a smart girl—eager to learn. Took to languages with no effort, except English. Her voice always had a seductive lilt to it—perhaps a hint of her lost British accent.”

“I never thought of a British accent as seductive,” I said.

“Here.” She passed me her pipe. “You have not thought it so because to you it has nothing of the exotic. The ordinary cannot be inspiring.”

“It is this knowledge, I imagine, that brought you to the center of attention in the harem.” Surprised by its sweet taste, I drew smoke deep into my lungs—too deep—and was overwhelmed with a burst of coughing. Bezime laughed.

“You are unskilled in this art.”

“Smoking? Yes,” I said, still stuttering with continued coughs.

“Yes, that too.” She took back the çubuk. “But I refer to the exotic. Seeking it, finding it, capturing it.”

“We were talking about Ceyden.”

“If you insist, we can return to that subject.”

“I’m afraid we must.”

“Then your lesson in the exotic must wait for another day. Your husband would not be pleased to know your priorities.”

“Oh, he’s perfectly pleased.”

“You answer too fast,” she said. “But I will allow you your misguided thoughts.”

“I’m not sure I should thank you,” I said, and watched her force a thin stream of silver smoke through lips stretched wide in a smile. “Back to Ceyden, though. Perestu made it exceedingly clear that she kept the girl away from the sultan. Am I correct to suspect you helped her gain access to him?”

“I did.”

“And it caused a rift between you and Perestu?”

She shrugged. “There are so many rifts. We all fought for our survival in the harem.”

“But what of your stories of freedom?”

“I was free to fight for it. Concubines who are successful must be able to charm both the sultan and the women around them. It is only once you’ve reached a high enough status—given birth to the sultan’s child—that the necessity of alliance begins to fade. I do not think there is a man alive who would not have wanted Ceyden. But the other girls hated her.”

“But you didn’t?”

“No. I saw in her a brightness that appealed to me. And I was already old, had gained everything I wanted, stood to lose nothing by playing.”

“Playing?”

“I wanted to see if I could circumvent Perestu and elevate Ceyden’s status. Sadly, it did not work.”

“When were you sent away from the harem?”

“Shortly after Ceyden spent the night with the sultan. Perestu did not appreciate my endeavor.”

“Perestu seems to think Ceyden has never so much as spoken to Abdül Hamit.”

Bezime laughed. “Well, perhaps they didn’t speak.” The scent of her tobacco filled the room. “But they did spend a night together.”

I picked up the bowstring from the low table before us, fingering the soft cords. “If Perestu knows that, would it spur her to exact revenge on you?”

“If she’s bored enough,” Bezime said. “There’s no better distraction from ennui than eliminating one’s former rivals.”

“I’m getting no candor from the concubines at Yıldız. What must I do to change this? How can I make them trust me?”

“It’s impossible to force trust. There is, however, something you could try to earn it, but it may scare you too much.”

“I never back down from a challenge.”

She laughed. “Then tell Perestu you want to go to the hamam at Yıldız. You will find the women more likely to trust you if you bathe with them.”

“Bathe with them?”

“It is our tradition. Everyone goes to the baths at least once a week—I told you I worked in one before the sultan found me. There is no better place to find out all the gossip, all the truth. Perestu will allow it because she will believe the experience will do nothing but horrify you.”

“Horrify me?” She couldn’t have been more right, but I had grown almost fond of bluffing people. “It sounds perfectly pleasant. I shall arrange to go as soon as possible.”

The moment I left Topkapı, I directed my boatman to take me up the Bosphorus past Dolmabahçe to the dock closest to Yıldız, my stomach turning itself over and into knots. I clutched the side of the boat, the rough wood pressing hard against the bones in my hands, the faint fishy smell coming from the water tormenting me. Looking at the horizon, which Colin had insisted would help ward off seasickness, had the effect only of making me long to stand on the land at which I gazed. A man at the quay steadied me with a strong hand as I stepped off the rocking vessel, and I sat on a nearby bench, too queasy to walk to the palace. An obliging tree shaded me, and I stared across at the houses lining the Asian shore.

I was alarmed in no small way. I’d always considered myself of hearty constitution—seasickness was not something from which I’d previously suffered, although I’d not before been on small boats in such rough waters. More concerning—terrifying, in fact—was the thought that it might not be seasickness at all. Could I have already entered that phase of married life in which a lady’s existence was forever altered in the most dramatic fashion? I bit my lip too hard and tasted salt on my tongue. Not that it would be a bad thing. It was inevitable, after all, and the inconvenience wouldn’t be interminable. Nonetheless, I was filled with ambivalence and something darker, a thing I was not yet willing to face. I pulled myself up from the bench and started up the hill towards Yıldız, not wanting to be late for the appointment I’d scheduled to see the sultan.

The palace was not like most traditional royal houses. Instead of one massive building, it was formed by groupings of pavilions and kiosks overlooking a lake, all surrounded by high walls. Green lawns and well-tended gardens shared the grounds with more rugged wooded patches, and the scent of orange blossoms greeted me as I reached the gate.

The guards recognized me from my previous visit, and I was led into a formal reception room in the center of which stood a table big enough to seat twenty in comfort. It drew me in at once, and I reached out to touch the smooth, inlaid surface, feeling the thread-thin grooves between tortoiseshell and oak, mother-of-pearl and ebony. I had traced the entire circumference of the piece and still no one had come to me. I crossed to a window and pulled open the shutter, looking at the woods that stretched below me, dark evergreens blocking all but lacy cutouts of light.

“Lady Emily?” A eunuch poked his head around the open door. “His Imperial Majesty will see you.”

He took me through corridor after corridor until we were outside, standing before a small building in which we found Abdül Hamit II, bent over a bench, rubbing a piece of sandpaper on a chair that lay on its back before him. He was not tall, though not strikingly short, but slim. Piercing dark eyes and a large, aquiline nose stood out from his black hair and neatly trimmed beard. His face was heavy with fatigue.

“It is my greatest pleasure to see you, Lady Emily,” he said, bursting with youthful energy that I’d not expected from a man his age. His voice, however, was quiet in its exuberance, low, almost like a song. “My thanks to you for coming all this way.” He swept his hand in front of his chest, gesturing to the space around him. “What do you think of my work?”

The room swam with the clean smell of fresh wood. Along the walls stood cabinets, tables, chairs, and chests piled one in front of the other, all, I assumed, made by the sultan’s own hands. “It’s exquisite,” I said, forgetting myself and walking away from him to inspect a tall bookcase fashioned from golden-stained cherry.

“I’m pleased you like it. There’s little more satisfying than working with one’s hands, yes?”

“I can imagine.” Careful sanding had given the wood a smoothness that was at once firm and soft.

“Do you read?” he asked. “Anyone with such an appreciation for bookshelves must.”

“Constantly,” I said, not able to stop running my hands over the perfectly finished wood. “Sensational fiction. I’ve a terrible habit of reading the most lowbrow things you can imagine.”

“Do you like detective novels?”

“Conan Doyle stuns me every time.”

He nodded. “You are someone I could like very much. I have his novels translated into Turkish as soon as they are published. The chief of my wardrobe reads them to me, and I do not let him stop until the book is done.”

“An admirable devotion to the written word.”

“I would like very much to have the bookcases sent to your house in England. A gift for you.”

“That’s generous of you,” I said. “Thank you. They will be adored.”

“I would not give them to you otherwise. What else do you read?”

“I study Greek, so lots of Homer.”

“Will you visit Troy while you are in my country?”

“I want to more than anything, if only to lie on the fields and weep for poor, slain Hector.”

This drew a smile. “I will have the trip arranged for you when this ugly business in the harem is finished.” He turned away from the piece on which he’d been working and walked to a pile of long boards, picking up one after another, running his fingertips along the length of each before selecting one to bring back to his bench.

“You’re very kind,” I said.

He pushed a yardstick against the board and began marking measurements with a chewed-up pencil. “I have a deep sympathy for Ceyden’s father. I lost my first child, a daughter, when she was very young. She was burned after playing with matches. Her mother and I suffered immeasurably at the loss. She would be your age now.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“This is not, I think, the way you’d hoped to spend your wedding trip,” he said.

“No one would anticipate such a thing, but I would never walk away from the opportunity to seek justice.”

“Justice, Lady Emily, is not always so clear.”

“Did you know Ceyden?”

“To a degree.”

“Will you not tell me more?” I watched his face, searching for evidence that he was withholding something, but his countenance was calm, focused.

“You question the sultan?” He placed his palms flat against the board in front of him, and I expected anger to cloud his eyes. Instead, I saw laughter.

“Bad form?” I smiled at him.

“Terribly.”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” I said. “I’m merely trying to form as accurate a summation of the girl’s life as I can.”

“You’ll find all you need to know in the harem.”

“Your concubines have been less than forthcoming. It’s almost as if their words are chosen for them.”

“And this surprises you?”

“Yes, because I’d been led to believe you support my investigation. A word from you would surely—”

“It is not I you must convince, but my mother,” he said.

“Does she not listen to you?”

“Does your mother listen to you?”

Laughter escaped my lips, and I felt my cheeks flushing hot. “Never.”

“We are of one mind, then, at least in this regard. And if your mother is like mine”—he leaned closer to me—“the less said about it the better. Her spies are everywhere.”

“But surely your own spies hold them at bay?”

“One can only hope.”

He was warming to me. I felt we were on a course to getting along famously, and this brought me no small measure of pride. To have so quickly made an ally of the sultan himself! A slight tug of conscience made me almost wish Colin were standing behind me, reminding me of what, exactly, goes before a fall, but I dismissed the notion and beamed, ready to forward the rest of my agenda.

“There is something else I would like to discuss with you,” I said. “I spoke with the young woman who found Ceyden’s body. She’s terribly upset.”

“Understandable. Roxelana is a sensitive girl.”

“I have heard that, on occasion, concubines are released from the harem and allowed to marry. Would you consider allowing her to do that?” It was not a perfectly satisfactory solution to Roxelana’s plight, but better, I hoped, than nothing. I would much prefer to find a way to fully free her of her bonds, to let her rejoice in independence as I did, but fear of Colin’s disapproval—particularly if my scheme was revealed to the British government—kept me from taking a more creative approach to her predicament. And this was something of which I was not proud in the least.

“There are times when such arrangements are made. Not, however, at the whim of the concubines. These marriages are careful political alliances, gestures of good faith to valued advisers from their sultan. It is a mark of the highest trust to be selected for a role like that.”

“How so?”

“Wives can sometimes be in a position to observe much.”

“They spy for you?”

“They ensure that I have staunch supporters in their husbands.”

“I’ve no doubt Roxelana would serve you well.” As I said the words, my throat clenched, and a chill of horror rippled through me. I hated negotiating as if the girl were some sort of chattel, hated even more the thought of marrying her off to some random and, undoubtedly, unsympathetic man. But so far as I could tell, there was no other way out of the harem.

He put down the pencil and flashed me a look full of power and disdain, his brow lined, his eyes narrow and strong. “No.”

“No?”

“No. Is there anything else?”

“Could we not—”

“There will be no further discussion on this topic.” He nodded sharply towards a dark corner of the room, and a tall eunuch appeared from the shadows. “He will escort you out. I did, Lady Emily, very much enjoy components of our conversation.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but the eunuch’s firm grip on my arm stopped the words. He all but dragged me, not easing the pressure of his fingers until he’d deposited me outside the palace gates, leaving me standing, dumbfounded, already feeling the beginnings of bruises.

6 April 1892

Emily, Emily, Emily:

I am writing this letter without giving you a single clue as to where I am. This is due entirely to the fact that I’m a dreadful and unredeemable human being who likes to torment her friends. You’ll forgive me, though, in the end. I’ve embarked on a magnificent trip—one funded by my parents in exchange for letting them plan for me a wedding of the sort you so wisely avoided. Can you imagine what it would take to persuade me to accept such a thing? I need hardly tell you that I insist you and Colin come to New York for the hideous extravaganza.

My poor Mr. Michaels has no idea what he’s in for. He’s agreeable—as a fiancé ought to be—to anything so long as it doesn’t interfere with his responsibilities at Oxford. The nuptials will be between terms, so we’ll have only a brief honeymoon before he has to return to his academic duties. I confess to rather obscene excitement at the thought of watching him lecture and knowing that afterwards we’ll return home together. Every nerve is full of the greatest anticipation. Can you imagine the breadth of our conversation? The perfect joining of mind and body? But of course I need not explain this to you—for at the moment you’ve a greater volume of experience than I and know well the pleasures of an intellectual marriage. How lucky we both are!

Not surprisingly, my dear parents insisted that I travel with a suitable companion, and she has already proven an incredible nuisance. Remember my mother’s friend Mrs. Taylor? She recommended her daughters’ former governess, and my mother snapped her up at once. I call her Medusa, as she’s turned me to stone at least a dozen times since we left England.

Other than that, I’ve little of interest to report. Mr. Michaels has been sending me the most supremely ridiculous love letters every day. I’m sorry to say they’re rather badly written—too scholarly—but the sentiments are heartily appreciated nonetheless.

I am, your most awful and debauched friend,

Margaret Seward