“Produce the sultan, or suffer the consequences!” The Kislar Agha screamed. Then his head turned a fraction, and at the same moment Yashim recognised the girl.
The girl who had stolen the gozde’s ring.
Yashim closed his eyes. And in that second he saw her beauti—ful, unyielding face again, when she had closed her mind to him.
Only now he recognised that look. A mask of grief.
A slave-girl gasped at his side, and Yashim opened his eyes. The girl had hurled herself upon the enormous eunuch: he swatted her aside like a fly. But she was on her feet in a moment, and for the first time Yashim saw that she carried a dagger in her fist, a long, curved steel like a scorpion’s sting. She sprang again, and this time it was as if the two embraced, like lovers: the slim white girl and the huge black man, staggering as she clung to him.
But she was no match for the kislar. His hands closed around her neck and with a tremendous thrust of his arms he pushed her off. His long fingers spread around her neck like a stain. Her feet kicked wildly but skidded on the wet stone. Her hands came up to his, clawing at them: but the Kislar Agha’s strength was far greater. With a grunt he flung her aside. She crumpled back against the floor, and lay still.
Nobody moved. Even the valide’s foot had stopped tapping.
Suddenly one of the women screamed and clapped her hand to her mouth. The Kislar Agha swung round, his head moving from side to side as if expecting another assault. Yashim saw the women shrink back.
The Kislar Agha opened his mouth to speak.
He coughed.
His hands went to his stomach.
Behind him the eunuchs stirred. Their chief started to turn towards them, and as he moved Yashim saw very clearly what had made the women scream.
The jewelled hilt of a Circassian blade.
The kislar spluttered as he turned, and then he began to twist towards the ground, his enormous torso slowly sinking as he wheeled. His legs gave way and he sank to his knees, still holding the hilt of the dagger in his abdomen, wearing the look of horrified surprise that he would take to the grave.
Yashim heard the thump as the Kislar Agha’s body pitched headfirst to the ground.
[ 122 ]
There was a momentary silence before the court erupted in pandemonium. The eunuchs swarmed towards the doors in a frenzy to escape, anything to put some distance between them and their fallen chief. Men were slithering and scrambling over each other to reach the doors, some running into the Golden Road, others pouring below the colonnade where Yashim could no longer see them. Doubtless those clockwork halberdiers would stand immobile as dozens of men fled to the sanctuary of their own quarters. Tomorrow you would not find one, Yashim reflected, who would admit to having been there that night.
They’d accuse each other, though.
There was one, at least, he could vouch for personally. He was glad that Ibou had chosen the right course, sticking to his world of musty texts and tattered documents.
The eunuchs had all but cleared from the court, leaving jewels, slippers and even their batons strewn across the flagstones. A few men had attempted to stem the rout at the first panic, dragging at the crowd, shouting encouragement. “It is still the Hour!” But the eunuchs had run like chickens in a yard, and the words of encouragement had died away. Everyone had gone.
Still the women had not moved, waiting for their mistress’s signal. The chief eunuch and the dead girl still lay on the gleaming flagstones like pieces seized from a giant game of chess -white pawn sacrificed for the black castle. It was a self-sacrifice, though. It had been her ring, all along. A token she had asked her lover to wear, Yashim supposed. There were other forms of love inside these walls than the love of a woman for a man—if the performance of the act could be considered love. What had the dresser told them? That this ring turned up here and there, with its esoteric symbol, its concealed meaning. It was clear enough, now. An endless circuit, snake swallowing snake. Frustration and excitement and pleasure in equal measure—and without issue.
The valide had stepped down into the courtyard, and the women were crowding round the body of the girl, lifting her up, moving her beneath the colonnades.
Even now, Yashim felt a pang of pity for the man who had killed her, and her lover, too. Only a few hours earlier they had spoken together, just where he lay now, and he had reminded Yashim of the murder of the sultan’s father, Selim, as he played music on the
