“Esther can always do the impossible, can’t you, my old friend?” teased Safiye.
“Just sometimes, my lady bas kadin,” and then she smiled at Aidan. “You see, my lady Marjallah, I, too, know my limits, but in this matter of tulip bulbs I am certain that I can be of help.”
It was no surprise therefore to Aidan when she received a visit from Esther Kira several days later. The elderly lady arrived by her private, and quite luxurious caïque, and having been lifted ashore by one of her slaves she hurried up to the house, trailed by a large black eunuch clutching an enormous bundle.
Aidan greeted her warmly. “Why did you not tell me that you were coming, Esther Kira? You will think me a bad hostess. Marta! Make tea, and bring cakes.” She settled the old lady by a brazier. “It is chilly out on the water,” she scolded gently. “You will catch your death.”
“You sound like my great-granddaughter Rachael,” Esther chuckled. “My daughter, and daughters-in-law long ago gave up fretting over me. Rachael, however, is yet young and determined. She reminds me of myself at that age.”
“I have the distinct feeling,” said Aidan with a smile, “that you will live so many more years that you will finally fret even Rachael.”
“Heh! Heh! Heh!” laughed the old lady, and she nodded quite vigorously. “May it be from your mouth to God’s ear,” she said.
Marta and her two daughters brought the refreshments, an earthenware pot with its own brazier in which they brewed the hot and refreshing drink that Javid Khan had taught her was called tea. He had brought from the Crimea two small chests, each containing several foil-wrapped bundles of leaves from which the drink was made. The red lacquered chest held packets of black tea, the green lacquered box held the green tea. It was his favorite beverage, even more than coffee, and he had showed her how to brew it.
Filling a handleless cup with the hot drink Aidan passed it to Esther Kira, who sipping at it, smacked her lips appreciatively. Aidan offered her almond cakes, and sticky, sweet Turkish paste candy which she knew from Safiye was Esther’s favorite. The old woman settled back to let Esther tell her why she had come. She did not have long to wait.
“I have brought you a goodly selection of tulips including some very rare and unusual specimens from Persia which are not even in the sultan’s gardens. They are my gift to you, Lady Marjallah.”
“Oh, Esther Kira,” protested Aidan, “they must be very valuable, and I cannot let you gift me like that. You must let me pay you!”
“No, no, child! I want to give them to you. For me it is such a little thing, and I did not purchase them for you. They are but extra bulbs from my own gardens, but I really want you to have them for I know how happy they will make you in the spring when they bloom. Your gardens will be a feast for the eyes, and your husband will be pleased. The sultan valideh will come to see them, and you will bring honor on your house. Perhaps someday you can do something for me.” She smiled.
“You are so kind,” Aidan said, and she felt the tears pricking at her eyelids although she did not know why.
“Are you happy, my child?” asked Esther Kira.
“I am not unhappy,” Aidan answered. Then she sighed. “That kind of an answer must sound as if I am avoiding your question, and I am really not. Yes, I am happy in the sense that I am grateful to be the prince’s wife. I am only beginning to realize what could have happened to me as a captive. I have had great fortune in this matter.”
“But you do not love him,” said Esther Kira.
“Not the way I love Conn,” she said quietly, instinctively knowing that this wise old woman would not repeat their conversation. It felt good to have someone whom she could trust again. She did not have that feeling with Nur-U-Banu or Safiye although she was glad for their friendship.
Esther Kira nodded. “You are making peace with yourself, my child, and that is a good thing. In my long lifetime I have seen many women who were not born to this world enter into it from the western part of Europe. The ones who were the happiest were the ones who accepted their fates, and then got on with their lives. They were the women, like Safiye, who went on to power. You are young yet, but you will find that passion is a fleeting and nebulous commodity. Whatever you left behind is simply that. Behind you now. Did you have children?”
“No. We had not been wed that long.”
“Then all you have left behind is a man, and they, you will find, my child, are quite replaceable. As replaceable as they seem to think we are although of course
that
is not really true.” She chuckled wickedly. “Men believe that they run the world, but it is not so, is it? In my youth I remember my dear lady Cyra Hafise, and how she guided her beloved husband, Sultan Selim I, without his ever realizing that she was doing it. When her son inherited his father’s throne she again, this time in her role as the sultan valideh, guided him also. She only made one mistake.”
“What was that?” Aidan loved the garrulous old lady’s reminiscences.
“Sultan Suleiman had but one favorite, Gulbehar, the Rose of Spring. She was a princess from the city of Baghdad. They had one child, a son, but my lady Cyra could not let well enough alone, and tempted her son with a Russian captive, Khurrem, the Laughing One. Khurrem had for Sultan Suleiman the same fascination that a moth has for a flame. He was intrigued by her, consumed by her, he could not get enough of her. It was the end for Gulbehar, and my lady Cyra regretted her meddling to her dying day for her son, the sultan, could not be wooed from Khurrem’s side as he had been from Gulbehar’s, and he chose no other favorites so in the end the sultan valideh had only exchanged one for the other.”
“A situation similar to Nur-U-Banu and Safiye’s,” noted Aidan.
“Yes,” agreed Esther Kira, “and yet not quite. It is true that Safiye held Sultan Murad’s undivided attention for many years, but he is an abnormally sensual man, and his mother recognized it. I will not tell you that the valideh’s intentions were all noble, for they were not, but she preferred to see him channel that particular energy in his harem rather than in a destructive fashion such as a useless war. The sultan, however, took his mother’s suggestion a little too much to heart. Although he spends his mornings attending to the business of his government, and in the company of creatives and intellectuals; the rest of his time is now devoted to his harem. He is fathering children at an alarming rate. Hardly more than two or three months go by that one of his women does not give birth. It is most obvious now that it was Safiye who grew infertile after Prince Memhet’s birth, and not the sultan. Still the bas kadin has no cause for complaint. The sultan loves and honors her above all women but for his mother. You will find as you learn more about the Ottoman sultan that there are four women he respects and admires. Here in Istanbul they are called the four pillars of the empire. One, of course, is Nur-U-Banu, his mother. Another, Safiye. The other two are his full sister, Fahrusha Sultan, and the mystic, Janfeda.
“Janfeda entered the harem during the time of Selim II. She and Nur-U-Banu became close friends, and each promised the other that if she became a favorite she would not forget the other. Of course it was Nur-U-Banu with her golden hair and pink-and-white complexion and her dark eyes whom Selim II noticed. Eventually at Nur-U-Banu’s behest he favored Janfeda. Strangely she is more beautiful than the valideh, yet Selim could never see it, but it was just as well. Janfeda has a rare gift of seeing things that other people cannot. Sultan Murad is deeply fond of her, and values her advice.”
“Listening to you, Esther Kira, is like being a little girl again, and hearing my mother tell me fairy stories,” said Aidan.
“Except,” said Esther Kira, “these tales of Arabian Nights that I spin for you are truth. Now, however, dear child, I must leave you if I am to be home in time to light my sabbath candles. I do not feel my years, but I know I am an old woman when I sit telling tales instead of minding the time.” With Marta’s help she arose to her feet. “I like you, my lady Marjallah, and I would be your friend. Remember that you may rely upon me.” Then escorted by Jinji, who had been beside himself with delight that his mistress had received a visit from the great Esther Kira herself, the old woman departed the prince’s palace to return to Istanbul.
“We shall have our spring garden!” Aidan told Javid Khan when he returned from the city that evening, and then she related her visit with Esther Kira.
“You,” he said approvingly, “become more of an asset each day, my jewel. In your short time here you have become friends with the sultan’s mother, his favorite of favorites, and now the matriarch of one of Europe’s wealthiest banking families. If I but knew the name of the good genie who blessed me so I should thank him.”
“Oh, I am so glad to have made you, happy,” she said, “for you make me happy! In the spring when the gardens are at their peak we shall invite the sultan—that would be permissible, wouldn’t it?—Nur-U-Banu, Safiye, Janfeda, and Fahrusha Sultan, and whoever else you think, to partake in a festival of flowers.”
Her enthusiasm was a delight to him for it bespoke a zest for living. Taking her onto his lap he sat amid the fat pillows with her. “It would be very permissible to ask the sultan and his ladies to our home, and you are very clever to think of it. How did you learn of Janfeda and Fahrusha Sultan ?” His hand slipped beneath her silken blouse to fondle her breasts.
“Esther Kira told me,” she said snuggling against him with a sigh. “Listening to her is like living the history of this dynasty, my lord Javid.”
“And she has indeed lived it herself, my jewel, and appears to show no signs of departing this life. I would not be surprised despite her great age to see her live on into the next reign.” He shifted her so that she lay back against his arm, and dipping his head fastened his mouth upon one of her nipples, encircling the quickly rigid tip with his hot tongue so that she murmured with pleasure, her hand kneading strongly at the back of his neck. He played with both her glorious breasts for some minutes, squeezing them firmly, caressing them with gentle touches, licking and blowing on the nipples. Beneath him she wiggled with abandon out of her dark purple silk pantaloons, and discovering it he gave a growl of laughter. “Shameless houri,” he murmured, kissing her passionately, but she pulled away from him, and with eager hands began to disrobe him to his delight.
“I adore you without your clothes,” she teased him audaciously, and he chuckled.
“You are bold as well as shameless,” he teased her back. She was so unlike any woman he had ever known. She did not hide her emotions from him, but was open. It was a sort of honesty he had not expected to find in a woman, but he liked it. Once her initial shyness had worn off he discovered that she was daring enough to sometimes take the lead in their lovemaking, and he found that incredibly exciting for Javid Khan was used to passivity in his women.
“Tonight,” he said as she yanked his pantaloons off his long frame, “I shall teach you how the women of my land sometimes love their lords.”
“How?” She sat back on her haunches looking curiously at him.
No one, he thought looking at her, no one has the right to look so delectable. Letting his eyes slide slowly down her lush form he enjoyed the knowledge that she was his, and his alone. If the sultan had but guessed at the incredible beauty of her body he should not have given her away. If Murad had but suspected her delightful passionate nature, a nature that was only just beginning to reveal itself to Javid Khan, Marjallah would not be his. But she was!
His blue eyes caught her silvery-gray ones in thrall. “You know the special way in which I love you, my jewel? The way that sets your lovely body afire for me?” She nodded. “I want you to love me in that way,” he said.
“I have never done that,” she said slowly, and she looked down at his manhood which lay quietly against his body.
Javid Khan drew his wife against him, and kissed her mouth with a slow and sensuous kiss, his tongue sliding through her lips to dart daringly about her mouth. Then releasing her he gently pushed her head down to his manhood. “I will not force you,” he said, “but I want you to try. Take me in your mouth, Marjallah, and love me as I love you.”
Aidan shivered. She had never considered doing what it was that he now importuned her to do, and yet she had also never imagined that a man could love a woman in that way. It gave her great pleasure when he did. Was it possible that she could give him the same pleasure? If it was, then she wanted to do so. Reaching out with her tongue she touched but the tip of it to his shaft; then growing bolder ran it about the ruby head, a second shiver, this one of excitement when he groaned, “Ahh, my love!” Emboldened now she opened her mouth and took him between her lips, sucking upon him as upon a delicious morsel.
His voice tight he instructed her, and she carefully followed his bidding, quickly realizing from the fact he grew bigger and harder with every growing minute, and from the pleasured moans that escaped his lips, that he was indeed gaining a great deal of pleasure from her. Finally he cried out, “Cease my jewel! Now, before I spill my seed in a useless place,” and she obeyed him, expecting him to order her upon her back, but to her surprise he said, “Now, my adorable wife, I want you to mount yourself upon me as you would upon the horses you tell me that you can ride.” Surprised she stared at him, and he laughed as he lifted her up, and placed her upon his body. “Impale yourself, my jewel, upon my shaft. I want you to ride me!”
Aidan caught her lower lip between her teeth as for just a moment she considered what he was asking, but then a small smile turned up the corners of her mouth, and she gracefully mounted him, her breath catching sharply as his hardness filled her sheath. “Ohhh,” she said in a soft surprised voice.
Javid Khan laughed, and reaching up began to handle her breasts with firm, but insistent touches. “Now, my fair huntress, ride me. Ride me hard!”