The Aviary Gate (34 page)

‘No,' Celia took another step across the room, ‘but I won't hurt you, I promise.'

The room was very warm; there was a strange, acrid smell in the air as if something had been burning.

‘They said they'd bring me something, but then they never did …' Her voice tailed off. Celia saw the outline of a thin arm as the woman pulled one of the coverlets over her shoulders. ‘I'm so cold,' she shivered. ‘It's always so cold in here. Put some coals on the brazier,
kadin
.'

‘As you wish.' Celia approached the little brazier which stood at the foot of the alcove. She wondered what had been burning on the
coals to make the curious smell. ‘But it's not cold … it's like a hammam in here.'

Celia piled on some fresh coals. The woman shrank back into the shadows.

‘Are you sure you're not a ghost?' Her voice was still no more than a whisper.

‘Quite sure,' Celia found herself speaking soothingly, as if to a child, ‘ghosts and ghouls are only in dreams.'

‘Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I've seen them.' The woman made a sudden violent movement that caused Celia to start. ‘Let me see you, let me see your face!'

‘All right.' Celia picked up a lamp from the floor and held it up. As she did so a beam of light fell across the entrance to the alcove. It was only a brief flash of light, but it was all that was needed. A woman with hollow eyes and the body of an emaciated child stared back at her.

When she first felt the light on her the woman had put up one arm, as if to protect herself. Unsteadily she put it down again, and Celia saw that her face was not a face at all, but a mask, a mosaic of coloured stones stuck to her skin. Her hair, which hung loose about her face, was the colour of ink, black with a sheen to it that was almost blue. Black eyes, heavily outlined with kohl, glimmered in her strange jewelled face. The effect was at once eerie and spectacular, a Byzantine princess rising from her tomb.

‘What have they done to you?' Celia dropped to her knees beside her.

‘What do you mean? No one's done anything to me,' the woman said plaintively. With exploratory fingers she patted one of her cheeks, feeling its lapidary outline with something like surprise, as if she had forgotten that the stones were there. ‘They told me that I'd scratched myself. I don't know … I don't remember. But now I don't like to look at myself any more, so I cover myself up.'

She started to scratch again, this time at a patch of skin on her upper arm, where Celia now saw there was an open sore.

‘Please, you're hurting yourself.' Celia caught at her arm: it was weightless, hollow as an old bleached bone. How old was she, Celia wondered? Thirty, forty? A hundred? It was impossible to tell.

‘Did you bring me something?' The black eyes looked up at Celia anxiously. ‘The spiders have come again, they're all over me,
kadin
,'
with a little cry, she brushed her hands over her hair, and then the coverlet, ‘get them away, get them away!'

‘It's all right, there's nothing there.' Celia said, trying to take her hand, but she shook Celia off impatiently.

‘No spiders?'

‘No, no spiders.' Celia bent towards her. ‘May I know your name,
kadin
?' she said, taking the frail hand in hers. ‘Who are you?'

‘Who am I?' the woman looked up at her pitifully. Behind the glittering mask her eyes were rheumy, like an old woman's. ‘Everyone knows who I am.'

‘Of course they do,' Celia smiled at her, ‘you're the Sultan's favourite, aren't you?' she said gently. ‘You are Handan. Handan Kadin.'

The sound of her name brought on a fresh spasm of scratching. When it was over Handan lay back, exhausted, on the pillows. Celia looked around her nervously, conscious suddenly of how long she had been gone.

‘I think I must be getting back,' she whispered.

But as she turned to go, Handan caught hold of the edge of Celia's robe.

‘How did you know I was here?'

‘Gulay Haseki told me about you.'

‘Gulay Haseki?' Handan's voice was blank, as if she did not recognise the name at all.

‘Yes …' Celia hesitated, wondering whether to say anything about the Haseki's fate, then thought better of it. Besides, Handan, in this state of jewelled confinement, probably had little knowledge – and still less care – about the goings on in the harem. Then another thought occurred to Celia. She sat down on the edge of the bed again.

‘Gulay Haseki told me something else, or at least she started to tell me. I think you might know about it too,
kadin
. About the Nightingales of Manisa.'

At once Celia noticed a change in her demeanour. Handan looked at her suspiciously.

‘Everyone knows about the Nightingales of Manisa …' her voice tailed off. Her gaze alighted on a bluebottle that was crawling along the wooden wainscoting.

‘You were saying,
kadin
…' Celia shook her arm, to try to get her to concentrate again.

‘Three slaves were given to the old Sultan by his cousin Humashah. They were all chosen for their beautiful singing voices.'

‘Who were they? What were their names?'

But Handan had lost concentration again. Still watching the blue-bottle as it crawled towards her, she shrank back into the shadows.

‘Please … try to remember who they were.'

‘Everyone knows who they were: Safiye Sultan and Hassan Aga, of course.'

‘And the third slave?'

‘The third slave was called Cariye Mihrimah.'

‘Cariye Mihrimah, who's she? I never heard of anyone by that name.'

‘She died. The Valide loved her, they say she loved her too much. Loved her like a sister. Oh, the Valide would do anything for her, they said. But she was killed. They put her in a sack and drowned her. That's what they said, anyway. But
I'm
never going to tell anyone,' she leant towards Celia. ‘I'm never going to tell
anyone
what I know.'

For a moment there was silence. Then Celia said carefully, ‘Shall I ask Gulay Haseki then?'

‘Does she know?' Handan sounded surprised.

Celia nodded.

‘She knows their secret? That Cariye Mihrimah is still here, in the palace?'

‘Yes,
kadin
,' Celia nodded again, more slowly this time, ‘I think that's exactly what she knew.'

Safiye, the Valide Sultan, the mother of God's Shadow Upon Earth, came back to the open window casement where she had been sitting. She pulled the sable-lined shawl over her shoulders, and called to Cat, who was sitting licking his paws on the far side of the divan.

It was the dead of night. She tucked one of her bare feet under her, took off the heavy rock-crystal earrings. Rubbing her tender ear-lobes, she sighed luxuriously to herself and breathed in the scent of the gardens beneath her on the cool night air. Beyond them lay the sleeping city, never so beautiful as at night. She could just make out the familiar shapes of the boats and galleys, the black silhouette of the Galata Tower and beyond them the houses and vines of the foreign
envoys. The thought of the Englishman still lingered at the edge of her mind: she had enjoyed his conversation, his courtesy – and something else she could not put her finger on. Something – she hardly knew what – about the way he stood. Slim hips, a man's hips.

Had she been rash to arrange to see him again? The thought of him was troubling. In all these years, all the years since she had become Valide, she had never made a mistake. It was not the time to start now. She had seen the way his eyes had lingered on the lattice of her screen …

The sable pressed down on her shoulders, heavy as lead.

With a sigh the Valide stretched herself out amongst her silk cushions. There was no denying it, she had more difficulty sleeping these days. It did not trouble her especially. When she was still very young she had trained herself never to need much sleep, an inexpressible advantage in Murad's harem since it gave her time that no one else had: time to think and plan and stay ten paces ahead of everyone else. And when, after more than twenty years of extreme self-discipline, she had finally become what she had always set out to become – the Valide Sultan, the most powerful woman in the Ottoman empire – she found that her old habits were still the best ones.

Solitude had become more soothing to her than sleep. To be alone in the House of Felicity had always been a pleasure rarer than the Sultan's favours, and even now it was a luxury she rarely allowed herself. She thought of the Greek Lady, Nurbanu, and how in the old days she used to chide Safiye for her propensity to seek solitude. For the ordinary
cariyes
, living on top of one another like so many hens in a coop, solitude was out of the question; but for the Sultan's concubines it was unseemly, a question of propriety. As for Safiye herself, the Haseki, she was second in rank only to the Valide Nurbanu herself, and should be attended at all times.

If it had been up to Nurbanu, her attendants would have kept vigil over Safiye even in her sleep. The Valide smiled to herself. If only you could see me now, Greek Lady, she thought, stretching out her hand, turning it so that Nurbanu's emerald glinted faintly on her finger. The ring had a catch on the side, and inside was a small compartment containing a pellet of opium, the same one that had been there more than fifteen years ago now, the day she had taken the ring from
Nurbanu's still-warm finger herself. Oh yes, my lady, Safiye Sultan smiled to herself again, I know all your secrets now.

A faint sound, muffled but distinct, made her glance up. At once she was
en garde
. Instinctively her body tensed and she scanned the room – but there was nothing. The tiles on the walls of her apartments seemed a little blurred these days, but it was the darkness and the shadows that made them so. She closed her eyes and breathed in, feeling round the room again with that sixth sense of hers – her ears, her nose, the skin of her body even – her favourite hunting trick, as she used to tell Cariye Mihrimah in the old days, the one her father had taught her. It never failed. Even the slightest thickening of the air, the breath of a shadow passing beneath a crack under the door, the smell of fear, she could detect them all.

But no, there was nothing. Just Cat.

Safiye lay back again. Even at the worst moments of her life – the day that Murad had finally chosen another, younger concubine, the day they came to take Cariye Mihrimah away – even then she had not been tempted to take the gilded pill, as so many of the other harem women did. Not like Handan, poor foolish Handan, who had allowed another to take her place, who had thrown everything away for its sake.

Safiye snapped the ring shut. There were, after all, other dreams, other pleasures, even now. From beneath one of the cushions she took out a small hand mirror, its ivory casing encrusted with emeralds and rubies, and in the forgiving darkness examined her face carefully. Could it really be that she had grown old? In the darkness she did not look old. And she was not yet fifty. Esther Nasi had taught her well. There was, if she were truthful, a little crepiness on the back of her hands and around her neck now, but she refused to dwell on that. The skin of her face was still pale and unblemished, and so fine it had the creamy texture of gardenia petals. Or that's what Murad used to say when they lay together. In those days she had no need of mirrors, for he had been her mirror. For what was she, his Haseki, if not a reflection in his eyes?

She remembered how, night after night, when she was carrying his child and it was forbidden for him to embrace her, still it was she who would be summoned to his bed. He could have taken other concubines then, they would have allowed it, but – to the consternation of them all – he did not.

They were not much more than children themselves then. He was nineteen, she just sixteen when Safiye bore their first child. He would bid her stretch herself out beside him, just for the pleasure of having her there. He would undress her, and then dress her again, but wearing only her jewels this time, and she would lie quite still and quiet, as she knew he liked her to, while he stroked her breasts and the insides of her thighs with his fingertips.

She remembered how he would watch with wonder when the child turned inside her; how she would lie on her side when her belly grew too big for comfort, and the exact feeling of the coverlets – for it had been cold in Manisa in the winter months – the fur prickling against her neck, against the tender skin of her newly swollen breasts. How she would watch him as he ate up her body with his eyes, ravished her with his hungry gaze, until she shivered, and burned, and begged for his love.

Murad, my lion.

Slowly Safiye loosened the braids and tresses so painstakingly dressed by her maidservants until her hair hung down to below her waist. She untied the heavy girdle, ran her fingers up beneath her skirts to the smooth insides of her thighs. Dreamily she pushed her hand higher. There was hair there now, where once – for all those many years when she had been Haseki – there had been smooth skin.

She lay back softly amongst the cushions.

Later a feeling of calm filled her, but also another more troubling sensation: a small shard of memory, like a distant cloud, or a faint half-remembered echo of a childhood song. She did not often think of Murad these days. He had loved her for a long time. For more than ten years in Manisa, and then nearly as many years again in Constantinople, he had kept faith with her, no matter what others had done to force them apart. It was not seemly, they said, for the Sultan to consort with only one concubine, even if she had been raised to the official position of Haseki. His mother Nurbanu, and his sister, Humashah, had searched the empire high and low for the most beautiful slaves to give him – they even sent a special envoy to Esther Nasi, she remembered with amusement, who, incredibly, almost twenty years later was still trading in Scutari, despite her then tremendous age (and being too fat and old to walk, Safiye's informants told her, but quite as rich as a pasha).