Tears of Pearl

my eyes. The rich voice with which he spoke was not at all what I’d expected, nothing like the stories I’d heard of the castrati, whose angelic sopranos had charmed all of Italy during the Baroque age. Although he sounded like an ordinary man, there was no trace of whiskers on his perfectly smooth face. “Her Highness has been waiting for you.”

“It took me longer to get here than I expected,” I said, moving more quickly to match his pace, my heels catching in the spaces between the smooth black and white pebbles formed as a mosaic to look like directional arrows down the center of an otherwise cobbled pavement.

“You should never be late when the valide sultan has summoned you.”

I was not quite late, but I thought it best to restrain myself from pointing this out. “Valide sultan? I thought Perestu was valide sultan?”

He turned to look at me. “She is. But here it is Bezime who matters. It is unfortunate she lost her official position.”

“Unfortunate, perhaps, but inevitable,” I said. “Every sultan has his own mother.”

“Abdül Hamit’s mother died when he was young. Both Perestu and Bezime cared for him when he was a boy. This so-called inevitability was in fact a matter of choice.”

“You speak very freely,” I said, shocked to hear a servant give opinions—particularly opinions about the royal household—to a stranger.

“I am a favorite of many in the court, Bezime included, and have nothing to fear, no reason to hold my tongue.” He stopped walking and faced me directly. “You are not used to educated slaves who wield their own power.”

The flash in his black eyes made me suspect he was trying to shock me. Instead of registering the slightest surprise, I squared my shoulders and straightened my back. “No, I’m not. We don’t have slaves of any sort in England. And I admire very much that you are educated.”

“Everyone in the harem is educated.”

“You mean the women?” I asked.

“Yes. Of course. You’ll not find more cultured ladies anywhere. You think the sultan would want to surround himself with ignorant fools?”

“Many men have done worse.” We were walking again, inside now, along a stone corridor that led through doorways above which hung passages painted in Arabic—I presumed from the Koran—gold paint on a green background. After passing through another outdoor courtyard, this one surrounded by buildings painted pink, we entered a small room whose every square inch was covered with tiles painted in blues and greens. “What is your name?” I asked as he paused to pull open a heavy wooden door, rich wood carved in a bold pattern of squares and rectangles.

“Jemal Kaan.”

“I’m pleased to meet you.”

He turned down the corners of his mouth and did not look at me. “Bezime is waiting.”

The room into which we stepped had an enormously tall ceiling, domed at the top, with murals painted on the walls, landscapes that were leagues more Western than the rest of the tiled rooms I’d seen. Standing in the center of the square chamber was a table, inlaid, as were the cabinets built into the walls, with mother-of-pearl. Behind the table sat a woman, silver hair flowing down her back, the lines that etched her face somehow lending elegance to her appearance. She leaned forward on her elbows, then dropped back, puffing all the while on a long pipe.

“You’ve not seen a woman smoke a çubuk?” she asked, expertly blowing rings as she exhaled, fingering the pipe with hands whose long nails were dyed a rose color.

“I’ve never seen a çubuk,” I said, sitting across from her, almost envious of the gorgeous gown she wore, a concoction of sky blue silk and tulle cinched at her tiny waist, puffed sleeves bursting from the fitted bodice. Only her hair kept her from looking like a perfect Western fashion plate.

“So you are Emily Hargreaves. Lady Emily Hargreaves?”

“Yes.” I smiled. “And you are Bezime?”

She ignored my question. “I am not one to waste time on things lacking significance. You know of the murder that occurred last night?”

“Yes. I was there when—”

“Ceyden and I were close. I knew her when she first came to the harem. She was difficult then. Wouldn’t speak to anyone.”

“I can well imagine that. She must have been terrified. To have been stolen—”

“Sultans, Emily”—my name sounded exotic on her tongue, “Aimahlee”—“do not steal women. Yes, she was taken from her family and sold into slavery. But the noble Ottoman who bought her did her no harm. She wasn’t well. He had her cared for, and when she was healthy, he gave her to the sultan as a gift. It is a great compliment for a girl.”

“To be forced to live as a slave?” I asked.

“Do I look to you like a slave?” She narrowed her eyes and held up her arms, the heavy gold bangles on her wrists clanging together. “I have more freedom than my English counterparts.”

I smiled. “You’ll find I’m no proponent of the restrictions placed on my fellow Englishwomen. I’m well aware of the limitations of my society.”

“I did not come to the harem as a child. I worked in a hamam—a bath—in the city. Mahmut—he was the sultan then, Mahmut the Second—saw me carrying linen from a laundry across the street. My beauty enchanted him.” She drew deeply on her çubuk. “And I was brought to the harem, where I became his favorite, and I gave him a son. And when that son was made sultan, I was valide sultan, the most powerful woman in the empire.” She leaned forward again. “Tell me, Emily Hargreaves, can an English girl, working for a living, aspire to someday marry the Prince of Wales and give birth to a future king?”

I pressed my lips together hard. “No. She could not.”

“The lack of enlightenment in your country is unfortunate. I cannot see how women bother to live when they have no hope of advancing their positions.”

“There’s a certain amount of advancement possible, it’s simply that—”

Before I could finish, she dismissed my statement with a wave of her hand. “What they can hope for is insignificant. And the loss of hope...” She turned away, then looked back at me, meeting my eyes. “There is nothing worse than the loss of hope.”

“You’re right.” My skin prickled discomfort. “Why did you send for me? Because of Ceyden?”

“Yes. I am told that your husband will investigate the murder. But he will find no solutions outside of the harem.”

“And he cannot come into the harem. We’re well aware of that. It’s why he sought—and received— permission for me to—”

She laughed. “Do you think, Emily, that I do not already know everything you do? You are to be set upon us, asking questions. That is not why I have summoned you here.”

“Then why?”

“I have decided to offer you my allegiance. My support. Without which you will flail and accomplish nothing. Did you even know I was here? That this graveyard for the previous sultans’ women existed?”

“No. I confess I did not.”

“And do you know that Murat, the sultan’s cast-aside brother, has a harem of his own at Çırağan Sarayı , the palace that is his prison on the shores of the Bosphorus? And that the dealings of the women in both these locations must be considered if we are to find and punish the person who ended Ceyden’s life?”

“You speak as if you have an idea as to the identity of the guilty party,” I said.

“Ideas, perhaps, but ideas are nothing but ephemeral.”

“I did not expect my purpose to be a welcome one. I accept your assistance most gratefully. I promise I will not fail you.”

“Of course you won’t,” she said. “I read your chart.”

“My chart?”

“Know you nothing of astrology?”