The Janissary Tree

[ 49 ]

Asul watched the door close, and very slowly turned her eyes to look at Yashim. He had the feeling that she had never looked at him until now. Perhaps never really registered his presence in the room.

“Here,” he said softly. “Catch.”

The girl’s eyes followed the ring through the air. At the last moment, with a movement snake-like in its speed, she put out a hand. She clenched the ring in her fist, balled against her chest.

“I’ve seen you before,” she said in a small voice.

Yashim blinked slowly, but said nothing.

Asul glanced down, and uncurled her fingers. “He will take it from me again,” she said.

“But I will ask him not to,” Yashim said.

The girl almost smiled. A weary flicker of expression crossed her face. “You.”

Yashim pressed his palms to his face. “When you are hurt,” he began slowly, “when you have lost something—or someone—it makes you sad, doesn’t it? Sometimes change is good, and sometimes it makes us only want to cry. When you are young, it is hard to believe in pain or loss. But sadness is what makes us alive. The dead don’t grieve.

“Even here, there is plenty of sadness. Even in the Abode of Felicity. The Happy Place.”

He paused. Asul had not moved, except to rub the ring slowly between her fingers.

“You don’t have to say anything, Asul. Not now. Not to me. The sadness is yours, and only yours. But I want to give you something else, besides that ring.”

Asul raised her chin.

“Advice.” Yashim inclined his head, wondering how much he might say. How much she might understand. “Nothing can be changed, Asul. The loss is never repaired, the pain is never fully over. That is our fate, as men or women.

“Bitterness is not a better kind of grief, Asul. Grief has its place, but bitterness invades a wound like rot. Slowly, bit by bit, it shuts you down. And in the end, even though you are alive, you are really dead. I’ve seen it happen.”

Asul pressed her lips together. She glanced downwards, blinking. “Will I keep the ring?” Her voice was small, unsteady.

Yashim gazed at her, silent for a moment. A few minutes longer, and she would tell him what she knew. And with that single act of self-betrayal, perhaps, the bitterness would return.

He found the handle of the door.

“I will speak to the valide myself,” he said.

He needed to speak to her anyway, he thought. To fulfil a promise. To procure an invitation.