“Javid,” said Aidan. “He was going to ride at dawn as he usually does. Marta is there.”
Fern and Iris, ordinarily quiet girls, began to weep, sensing the disaster, and Aidan drawing her two little slavegirls to her put a comforting arm about both of them, but she said nothing for she didn’t know what she could possibly say. The caïque sped over the water as if it were propelled by wings instead of oars. Aidan hadn’t been aware that the vessel could move so quickly for under normal circumstances it moved at a stately pace. The city was soon in view, and they were once again wending their way through the harbor traffic, the noise, and the morning smells of the city calling out to them across the water. Across the mouth of the Golden Horn they raced, and the caïque began edging itself in toward the shore as the Yeni Serai came into view. In a shorter time than she would have believed possible they were arriving at the palace, and the dockmen were making the vessel fast.
Esther Kira climbed out, and said, “We will go to the sultan valideh immediately. She will know what to do.”
Aidan disembarked from the boat with Fern and Iris, and as they hurried through the gardens and the many courts that led to the valideh’s apartments she worried, “It is so early. I doubt that the lady Nur-U-Banu will be up yet.”
“Nur-U-Banu is always awake,” said Esther Kira. “I cannot help but wonder when she sleeps although she assures me that she does. She is very involved in her son’s government for she is a wise woman.”
Arriving at the apartments of the sultan’s mother they were ushered inside. Nur-U-Banu’s well-trained slaves showed absolutely no surprise at such an early visit by Esther Kira and Princess Marjallah Khan. They were seated and offered tea and almond cakes which Aidan waved away although Esther Kira accepted.
“Please,” said Aidan, “we must see the valideh! It is most urgent!”
“Her majesty is just coming from her bath,” the eunuch said. “I shall see if she will receive you now.”
“Tell her it is urgent!” Aidan repeated, and then sat nervously as she waited.
Several minutes—it seemed like hours to Aidan—the sultan valideh hurried into the room. She was wearing only a chamber robe, a beautiful quilted silk garment of rich lavender, and her fair hair was unbound. “Esther ! Marjallah! What is it? The eunuch said you claim urgency.”
Esther Kira gave Aidan no time to explain, instead launching into her own version of their tale. She was quick and to the point, and the valideh not even waiting to inform her son gave immediate orders that a full troop of Janissaries be dispatched to the palace of Prince Javid Khan at once. Then she sent a message to the sultan to attend her as quickly as he could.
“My dear Marjallah,” Nur-U-Banu said as she sat herself next to Aidan, and put a motherly arm about her, “you must not worry. It is highly unusual for what appears to have happened to happen within the borders of my son’s empire let alone so close to the city. Although the prince was not expecting to be attacked, he and his men have undoubtedly routed the invaders although not without damage to your home, and possibly even some casualties amongst your servants. With the arrival of our Janissaries your husband will have adequate reinforcements to thoroughly defeat these invaders. We will have a report as soon as it is possible, and in the meantime I want you to stay with me, dear child. You look fairly worn, and I can certainly see why. These last days have been utterly exhausting for you preparing your gardens for our visit yesterday, and then coming so early to the city to fetch our dear Esther. Kaspar!” she called to the eunuch. “Fetch a strawberry sherbet prepared my special way for the princess. Be quick!”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” said Aidan, for she was terribly distressed. Why had someone attacked her home? Where was Javid? Was poor Marta all right?
“Just a little something to drink, my dear,” said the valideh persuasively. “I can understand you not being able to eat, but the sherbet will help you keep up your strength. Do it for me, my dear Marjallah.”
Kaspar handed Aidan the sherbet, and because Nur-U-Banu was being so kind to her she knew that it would be churlish to refuse. Taking the goblet from the eunuch she sipped the sweet, slightly thick liquid down. Despite her anguish the strawberry-flavored drink did taste quite good. “I am so frightened,” she said to no one in particular.
“There, dear child,” the valideh soothed. “Everything will be all right, I am certain.”
Aidan’s head drooped onto Nur-U-Banu’s shoulder, and she yawned. “Sleepy. Why am I sleepy?” and then she suddenly leaned heavily against the sultan’s mother, unconscious.
“Take her into my bedchamber, and make her comfortable, Kaspar,” said the valideh to the eunuch. Then she looked to Aidan’s two little slavegirls, and the openmouthed Jinji. “You will stay with your mistress,” she ordered them, and they obediently followed Kaspar. Then Nur-U-Banu said to Esther Kira, “I have lived long enough in the harem to see a fit of hysterics coming on, old friend. Our Marjallah will sleep long enough for us to ascertain what has happened. Stay with me, and help me keep this vigil. We will send word to your family so they know where you are and that you are safe.”
Aidan awoke in the late afternoon, her memory of the morning instantly flooding back. Her eyes swept the valideh’s luxurious bedchamber, and she saw her three servants dozing, Fern and Iris by the side of the great bed, Jinji at its foot. Someone had thoughtfully removed her sleeveless robe, her slash-skirted dress, her belt, and her slippers. She saw them placed carefully upon a chair, and arose quickly to don the last two items of her wardrobe. Then she slipped quietly out the door finding herself in a small corridor across which was another door she hoped led back into the valideh’s salon. It did. Nur-U-Banu sat with Esther Kira, and several of the valideh’s maidens. They looked up as she entered the room.
“What news?” she asked them.
“The Janissaries have only just returned to the Yeni Serai, Marjallah,” said the valideh. “They will go to the sultan first, and then we will have word.”
Aidan sat down on a stool, her face a study in despair. Javid Khan was dead. She sensed it. No, she
knew
it! How could it have happened? What would become of her now? What would become of all of them?
Nur-U-Banu, and Esther Kira were both too wise to speak now, or to attempt to comfort Aidan. They, too, suspected the worst had happened so why should they offer false hope to her? The minutes slipped by marked by the slow dripping of the valideh’s water clock, and then suddenly the door to the salon flew open, and Murad entered into the room, and all eyes were upon him as they arose to make their obeisance.
He went immediately to Aidan, and seeing her at his feet he was assailed by that same heady feeling that attacked him yesterday. What was it about her that intrigued him so? Reaching down he raised her up. Her eyes met his, and the sultan said, “I am so sorry, Marjallah.”
For a brief moment she closed her eyes, but quickly opened them again to ask, “Tell me what happened. I want to know it all. I am not afraid to learn the truth.”
“They are all dead,” said the sultan bluntly, “and the palace and its gardens totally destroyed. It was obviously a surprise attack. Javid Khan was cut down by the stables. He died instantly, Marjallah. At least he had no pain. It was Tartars, his renegade brother, I am certain. My Janissaries have already departed to hunt them down. They will find them, I swear it!”
“How do you know it was Tartars?” she demanded, her voice dull with her pain.
The sultan hesitated and then said quietly, “Because after they killed their victims, they decapitated them, and stacked their heads in two piles on either side of your palace gates. It is their custom.”
Aidan felt the bile rise in her throat, but forcing it back she asked, “I had a serving woman. Is it possible she was taken captive?”
“I doubt it,” said the sultan. “I suspect she was probably raped, and then killed along with the rest of them. The object of this attack seemed to be wanton destruction. Even your livestock and pets were slaughtered although my men did find this fellow wandering about the gardens.” The sultan reached into his robes, and drew forth a half-grown cat with long orange-and-cream fur which he handed to her.
She took the squirming animal who immediately pressed himself against her, and looked up at Murad with a tearstained face and said, “It is Tulip. We called him that because of the orange blossom on the tip of his cream-colored tail. He likes to hunt at night in the fields about the palace, and never comes home until after the sun is up. That is what saved him, my lord.” Aidan buried her face into the cat’s fur, and began to cry.
“Thank you, my son, for bringing us this news, tragic as it is,” said Nur-U-Banu. “I will take care of Marjallah for now. Will you escort our dear Esther Kira to her litter which should even now be arriving in my courtyard ?”
The sultan valideh was the only person in the entire empire who could thus dismiss the sultan, and obedient to her will he departed the room with Esther Kira. Aidan had sunk down onto a pillowed divan and was crying softly. Nur-U-Banu let her weep until finally she could weep no more, and she sat clutching her cat to her bosom, her fair face blotched unattractively. Finally she looked up at the sultan’s mother, and the sadness in her eyes touched even the hardened heart of the sultan valideh.
“What will happen now?” she said softly to Nur-U-Banu.
“You will stay here in the palace, dear child, but you certainly cannot go back to the oda of our friend Lady Sayeste. You are the widow of a prince. You must have your own apartments. For now that is all we need worry about. There is time for us to decide your future later.”
“What future can I possibly have ?” said Aidan sadly.
Nur-U-Banu’s eyes were wise. “Everyone has a future as they have a past.”
“I seem to have nothing but pasts,” said Aidan. “Each time I begin to care for a man either I am snatched from him, or he from me. First it was my father, then Conn, and now Javid Khan. Perhaps it is written that I am meant to live my life alone.”
“No one is meant to live alone,” said the valideh. “It is not natural. That is why Allah planned that there should be both men and women. You are in shock, my child. I shall call my good physician, a particularly clever Greek, to care for you. I have the utmost faith in him.”
Aidan refrained from saying anything for there was nothing to say. Javid was dead. He had been taken from her as had Conn. She wasn’t certain she even wanted to go on living. What was left? She was far from her native England, from
Pearroc Royal,
and just when she had been beginning to rebuild her life with Javid Khan, it was all gone as if some evil genie, jealous of her happiness, had stolen it from her.
The physician came, and mixing several powders into a cup of rosewater proclaimed that what she needed was rest. Aidan was strongly tempted to tell him that she had spent the day sleeping, but instead she gratefully drank down the contents of his brew. At least if she slept she would not have to remember. Sleep was, after all, just what she needed. Nur-U-Banu herself escorted Aidan and her servants to a small two-room apartment right next to her own, and smilingly watched as she was put to bed. She was asleep before they had even finished with her.
The valideh returned to her own salon to find that her best friend, the lady Janfeda, had arrived. The two women kissed, and then settled themselves amid the colored and comfortable cushions of the divan.
“I have heard of your day,” Janfeda began. “How is the princess Marjallah?”
“Grief-stricken. Frightened. Self-pitying. What you would expect, dear Janfeda. She presents, however, an unfortunate problem. You saw how Murad looked at her yesterday, and when he came to tell her the news tonight he could barely keep his eyes from her breasts which were visible beneath the silk of her blouse. With a harem full of incredible beauties my son is lusting after a barely pretty woman who has known two husbands already.”
“Marry her off again,” said Janfeda.
“Murad will never let her go this time,” said Nur-U-Banu. “He is no fool, my son. He sees in Marjallah something more although I doubt he could tell you what it was if you asked him. He lusts to possess her, and I am afraid of what will happen if he does.”
“What disturbs you about this woman?” Janfeda had never known her friend to deny her son’s passions, indeed Nur-U-Banu encouraged them in order to keep Safiye’s power at a minimum.
“Marjallah is no fluffy kitten of a female, nor is she eager for the sultan’s favor; but if she gains it, if she conceives a child by him, and that child turned out to be a son, do you think an intelligent woman like Marjallah would be content then? I do not! She would want her child to be the next sultan! Of course she would! Would Safiye stand by and allow that, Janfeda? No, she would not! Oh, it is true that I keep the balance of power in the harem in my favor by seeing to it that Safiye no longer holds exclusive sway over my son, but the women that I have seen gain Murad’s favor are vapid beauties with no more care than what jewels and toys they can wheedle out of the sultan by the clever use of their bodies. Marjallah is not this kind of a woman, Janfeda. What am I to do with her? If Murad insists on having her in his bed Safiye will instantly become her enemy, and there will be war in the harem. I cannot have it.”
“Why must there be war in the harem, Nur-U-Banu? Did we not share the same sultan? We were not bitter enemies.”
“No,” said the valideh thoughtfully, “we were not, but then we were friends before we shared Selim.”
“So are Safiye and Marjallah.”
“But I never held such a hold on Selim as Safiye has held on my son. I understood the harem system, and I accepted it.”
“Safiye understands it, too,” said Janfeda.
“Oh, yes,” agreed the valideh, “but she has never accepted it. She has bitterly resented the fact that I encouraged Murad to seek out other women, to take other kadins. How she has hated me for it, and how she has tried to undermine my authority at every turn. This business with Marjallah is the first time in several years that we have worked together for the good of my son.