said after a moment, reading her young kinswoman's thoughts like an open book. 'It is bound to take some time in any case. Are you still set on risking your life?'
'Yes. I'm only sorry to have waited so long, simply because I did not know of anyone who could help me. But now I must take the risk. If this child lives, even if I never see it, even if the whole world lies between us, there will still be an invisible tie, a living witness to all that I suffered at the hands of that abominable creature.'
There was a note of strain and fierce denial in the younger woman's voice and her companion recognized it. Remembering how she herself had felt on learning that the seed of the aged sultan was germinating in the mysterious depths of her own body, and the kind of revulsion which not even the triumphant prospect before her could altogether extinguish, she could guess at Marianne's frantic urge to tear out of her womb the thing that had been planted there in a fashion so horrible that she could not even bear to think of it as a child but only as a kind of monstrous growth, a cancer devouring her life and all her hopes of happiness. Once again she put out her hand and pressed Marianne's, but without speaking, and her silence added to the girl's unhappiness.
'I—I disgust you, don't I?' she murmured.
'Disgust me? My poor child! You don't know what you're saying. The truth is that I am afraid for you. In the passion of your love and your longing for your lover, you are prepared to embark on a perilous course—and I fear you have not properly estimated the dangers and difficulties of it. Abortion is rare here, because our country can never have too many men. Only—forgive me, but I must speak plainly—only prostitutes regularly resort to it, and I will spare you the details of how they go about it. Why can't you bring yourself to accept my offer? I should never forgive myself if any harm should come to you. And you must see that it would be foolish to lose your life over this, for then you could never be with your lover again in this world. Is that what you want?'
'Of course not! I want to live; but if, with God's help, I were ever to meet him again, he would turn from me in disgust—indeed, he has already done so. He would not believe a word of what I tried to tell him. And so rather than endure his scorn, I would face death, yes, a thousand times over! I feel as though once I'm rid of it, I shall be somehow cleansed, as if I'll have recovered from an infectious illness. But if the child were living—anywhere in the world—I could not feel that. It must never be anything more than a disease, faceless and formless, of which I have been cured, and then I shall feel clean and whole again.'
'Or else you will be dead.' The Sultan Valideh sighed. 'Very well, since you are so set on it there is nothing I can do except—'
'The thing I ask?'
'Yes. But there is only one person here capable of carrying out this… operation with less than a fifty percent chance of killing you.'
'I'll take that chance. Fifty percent is pretty good.'
'No. It's very bad, but there's no other way. Listen. There is a woman living in the district of Kassim Pasha on the other side of the Golden Horn, between the old synagogue and the Nightingale River. She is a Jewess called Rebecca, the daughter of a skilled physician, Judah ben Nathan. She plies the trade of midwife, and with some skill by all accounts. No dockside whores or street harlots from the arsenal are admitted to her house, but I know that she has lent her services from time to time, at a price, to the adulterous wife of some man in high position, thereby saving her from certain death. She is known also to the rich Europeans of Pera and to the Phanariot Greek nobility, but her secret is well kept and Rebecca knows that silence is the key to her continued prosperity. She will not take you without a strong recommendation.'
Marianne's hopes faded once again.
'Money?' she faltered. 'Does she want very much? Everything I had was stolen from me on board Jason Beaufort's ship—'
'Don't worry about that. If I send you to Rebecca, then it is my affair. One of my women shall come to you tomorrow after dark with a closed carriage. She will take you to the Jewess, who will already have received her payment and her instructions. My woman will remain with you there for as long as necessary and then bring you by water to a house belonging to me in the vicinity of the Eyub cemetery where you may rest for a few days. Your ambassador will know only that you have gone with me on a brief visit to my palace at Scutari, where I shall be going the day after tomorrow.'
As she spoke, the weight began to lift from Marianne's heart, to be replaced by a sense of profound gratitude. By the time the soft, lisping voice had ceased, her eyes were full of tears. She slid to her knees and, lifting the hand that still rested on her own, she raised it to her lips.
'Your Highness,' she murmured, 'how can I thank you—'
'Why, by saying nothing. You will embarrass me if you insist on thanking me so much. This is a very small thing I do for you—and it is long since I had to do with an affair of the heart. You can't think how much I am enjoying it. Now, come—' She rose and shook out her pale-colored draperies, as though in haste now to shake off the burden of her confidences.
'It grows cold,' she said, 'and must be shockingly late besides. Your Monsieur de Latour-Maubourg must be wondering what has become of you. Your Breton is capable of imagining anything! He probably thinks I've had you sewn into a sack and dropped into the Bosporus with a stone tied round your neck. Or else that Mr. Canning has somehow spirited you away—' She laughed, relieved perhaps to have dealt with an awkward situation, and possibly also by the chance to unburden herself of some of the accumulated bitterness of her years. She chattered like a schoolgirl as she settled her muslin veils about her with all the care of a woman whose habit it is never to appear looking less than her best.
Marianne rose automatically and followed her. They made their way quickly back to the kiosk, where the file of eunuchs was still gravely waiting, and Marianne, hearing her companion giving orders for her return to the embassy with a doubled escort on account of the lateness of the hour, was appalled to realize that she had spent the best part of the night at the palace and still the mission entrusted to her by Napoleon remained unfulfilled. With a graciousness that was not perhaps entirely disinterested, the sultana had encouraged her to talk about herself, turning what had begun as a diplomatic audience into a purely family occasion in which the emperor and his concerns were out of place, and putting under a strong obligation of gratitude one who ordinarily should have been thinking of nothing but the success of her mission.
When, therefore, Nakshidil led her guest back into the pavilion and proposed a final cup of coffee while they waited for the arrival of the litter, Marianne was quick to accept, even if one more dose of that comforting beverage meant that she would not get a wink of sleep that night, or what was left of it.
She spoke seriously, striving to banish a trace of compunction at bringing the sultana back to what was evidently unwelcome ground.
'Your Highness has been so very kind to me tonight that you have made me forget the real reason for my coming here. I am ashamed to think that I have talked of almost nothing but myself when there are so many more important matters at stake. May I know how Your Highness is disposed to regard those things I have said in confidence and whether you will consider mentioning them to His Highness the sultan?'
'Talk to him? Well, I might, but'—and here she sighed—'I am afraid he will not listen to me. It is true that my son's love for me is complete and unchanging, but my influence is no longer what it was and neither is his admiration for your emperor.'
'But why not? Is it the divorce?'
'No. Rather it is because of certain clauses in the Treaty of Tilsit, of which he was informed by Mr. Canning, who had them from what source I do not know. It seems there was a letter from Napoleon to the tsar, dated February 2, 1808, in which the emperor put forward a proposal for the partition of the Ottoman Empire. Russia was to have the Balkans and Turkey in Asia; Austria, Serbia and Bosnia; France, Egypt and Syria, which would be a magnificent base for Napoleon to attack the British power in the Indies. So you see, we have small cause to love the emperor.'
Marianne felt as if the ground were shifting under her feet and mentally cursed Napoleon's epistolary indiscretions. What made him write such dangerous letters to a man he was not wholly sure of? Was he so delighted with Alexander as to forget even the most elementary rules of caution? What could she say now to rid the Turks of their very reasonable belief that the French emperor was prepared to sell them to the highest bidder? Should she deny it? There was small chance that she would be believed, and in any case it was becoming increasingly unlikely that she could persuade them to go on getting themselves killed to facilitate Napoleon's invasion of Russia.
However, she was determined to do her duty to the end, and so she went in gallantly to attack the English
