The Snake Stone

89

Yashim was relieved that he didn’t have to shop or cook. It was already past noon. He dressed with care, and an hour later he presented himself at the door of the sultan’s harem, in Topkapi Palace.

Hyacinth emerged from his little cubicle in the corridor and grinned, showing a row of reddish teeth. “I knew it would be you,” he said softly.

“The valide?”

The elderly eunuch wagged his head and looked serious. “Not receiving today. A little shock. She is resting.”

“Come on, Hyacinth,” Yashim said testily. “Everyone here is resting.”

Hyacinth giggled uncertainly and tapped Yashim on the chest with his fan.

“It seems it’s all your fault, Yashim,” he said. “You and your little favors.”

Yashim blinked. Years ago, when three hundred women or more were cooped up in the harem apartments, attended by a cohort of Black Eunuchs, it was only to be expected that everyone would know everyone else’s business. Now there was only one, the valide, with a handful of girls and a few attendants. But some things never changed.

“The bostanci refused her?”

Hyacinth’s hands fluttered. “I never said a word,” he insisted, raising his eyebrows. “Her Highness is not receiving-anyone.”

Yashim bowed; he admired the glint of steel beneath the black man’s gentle manner. But he wondered what would happen if he brushed him aside and pressed on. Hyacinth, he guessed, was stronger than he looked. A sort of giddiness swept over him. There would be no men-at-arms springing forward to enforce compliance; there never had been. It would never have been necessary.

“Is that you, Yashim?”

The voice from along the passage was unmistakable. Yashim looked up; Hyacinth whirled around.

The valide sultan was advancing very slowly along the passageway, one hand gripping the knob of a stick, the other raised to the shoulder of a girl whose arm was passed around the valide’s waist. What struck Yashim was not that the valide herself was bent, or very frail, or that her knuckles looked huge beneath the thin skin of her hands, but that she was wearing jewels: a welter of diamonds at her ears, around her neck, pearls gleaming from her diadem, and at her breast a lapis brooch with the figure N picked out in ivory. As she stepped forward into the sunlight it seemed to Yashim that she sparkled like a leaf after a storm.

Yashim bowed.

“The bostanci!” The valide stopped and worked her hand on the cane. “Il m’a refuse!”

Hyacinth lowered his eyes. His hands were draped around his enormous belly. The girl cast a frightened glance at Yashim.

The valide set both hands on the head of her cane. Very slowly she drew herself upright.

“Pssht!” She raised her chin. Hyacinth and the girl withdrew, bowing.

“Refused, Yashim,” the valide repeated quietly. “Why not? I am an old woman, far from the seat of power. The bostanci no longer fears me.”

Yashim stepped closer.

“The sultan should have stayed in Topkapi. My son.”

They looked at each other.

“How long, Yashim?”

“A few months,” he said. “Weeks.”

The valide’s hands rubbed together on the head of her stick.

“So little time,” she whispered at last. And then her lip trembled, and to Yashim’s astonishment the corner of her mouth lifted into a regretful smile.

“Men,” she said. “Ils font ce qu’ils veulent.”

They do what they want. Yashim bent his head.

“ Mais les femmes, Yashim. They do what they must.” She turned around. “And you, Yashim, I wonder? Perhaps you do what we need. Give me an arm.”

Slowly, without talking, they made their way back up the corridor to the valide’s courtyard.