The Aviary Gate (9 page)

‘What kind of thing?' Celia turned to her in alarm. ‘And how? How do you know?'

‘I … don't really know. It's just a feeling I get.' Annetta pressed her hand against the pit of her stomach. ‘Just remember what I've told you, it's the best I can do. Now – go!'

Celia had, of course, been in the presence of the Valide many times since she and Annetta had been taken into the House of Felicity.

There were many occasions in the life of the palace women – entertainments and dancing for the Sultan, alfresco picnics in the palace gardens and boating expeditions along the Bosphorous – when the Valide showed herself. At those times, when the music played and the sound of women's voices and laughter carried on the rose-scented air, when they were taken to watch the dolphins sporting in the Sea of Marmara or when the moonlight sparkled on the waters of the Bosphorous and the little boats of the women, lit up like fireflies, followed the Sultan in his mother Safiye's barge, its poop all inlaid with precious stones, shining with ivory and mother-of-pearl, seahorse teeth and gold, at those times, Celia thought, it was sometimes possible to believe that the Valide was indeed the mother of them all. Those were times of grace; times when the palace women did indeed seem the most fortunate and blessed of all the women in the Sultan's empire. At those times no one watched and waited and spied. Formality and palace etiquette were forgotten. So, too, were pain and fear, and the strange, constricted feeling – almost a constant now – on her left side, beneath her ribs.

In their various capacities, the palace women saw the Valide Sultan often, many of them on a daily basis, but it was only a very few who were admitted into her private quarters. These included the four personal maidservants, hand-picked by the Valide herself, who always attended her; the Harem Stewardess, the Valide's right hand and the most powerful woman in the palace after the Valide herself; the Mistresses of the Laundry and of the Pantry, of the Coffee and the Ablutions Ewer; and some of the other high dignitaries who were responsible for the daily running of the women's quarters: the Treasurer, the Scribe, and the great mute Coiffeur Mistress.

Now, when Gulbahar ushered her into the Valide's presence, Celia stood, as she had been taught to do, with her eyes fixed on the floor, not daring to look up. Gulbahar had withdrawn, although Celia had neither seen nor heard her go. She stood for a long time, aware only
of the deep silence that seemed to hang all around her in the Valide's chamber, its walls and high domed spaces slanting with cool green and golden light.

‘You may look up now.'

So it was true what they said. The voice was light and low, a voice at once golden and mysterious; the voice, they said, of an angel.

‘Come,
cariye
.' A hand raised, a flash of green emerald upon her fingers. ‘Come, slave, and let me look at you.'

Celia took three small steps towards the voice. An upright figure, always smaller than she expected, was silhouetted against the window. A fur cloak was loosely folded across her shoulders. At her ears and throat jewels blazed, and her tunic, beneath the furred lining of the cloak, was made of pure gold thread. Strings of tiny pearls had been woven into her hair, which hung down in a rope, like a mermaid's tresses, over one shoulder.

‘What is your name?'

‘Kaya … Majesty.'

Half-fearful still, Celia looked up. To her surprise the Valide was smiling. The fur of her cloak moved slightly, and Celia saw that a large cat was curled on her lap. The cat had pure white fur, and one blue and one green eye.

‘Ah.' The green emerald flashed once again in the sunlight. ‘Then sit, little Kaya. Sit with me awhile.' She pointed to some cushions near her on the divan. ‘This is Cat. Do you like cats? My son, the Sultan, gave him to me. It's not a very original name, I'm afraid, but it's what the eunuchs call her, and it suits her somehow.' The voice was kind, smiling even. ‘Do you see her eyes?' The cat, knowing it was being spoken of, fixed Celia in its unblinking, lapidary gaze. ‘They come from Van, these cats, in the east of our empire, near the mountains of the Caucasus. They are beautiful, no?'

‘Yes,' Celia nodded stiffly. And then, remembering Annetta's words, added bravely, ‘I've always liked cats.'

‘Ah, is that really so?' Safiye sounded as if nothing could be more pleasing than this piece of information. ‘Then we have something in common, you and I.' Jewelled fingers rubbed the sweet spot beneath the cat's chin. ‘And you, Signorina Kaya? Where were you from, before you came to us here?
De dove viene
?' She laughed suddenly
and delightfully. ‘You see, I speak the language of Venice. Does that surprise you? You are from Venice, no?'

‘No … I mean, yes, Majesty,' Celia said, anxious not to disappoint. ‘That is, I travelled there very often with my father. He was a merchant; his trade was with Venice, before he … before he died.'

‘
Poverina
.' The Valide's voice was soothing and kind.

‘I am from England. It's Annetta who's from Venice.' Celia hoped she was not gabbling her words. ‘We were on the same ship when we were …' Celia hesitated, uncertain of how to refer to that brutal and bloody episode which still haunted her sleep, ‘That is,' she corrected herself, ‘before we were brought here. To the House of Felicity.'

‘Annetta? You mean Ayshe, your dark-haired friend?'

Celia nodded. She had started to relax a little; arranged herself more comfortably against the cushions.

‘I believe your friend was born in Ragusa, which is where her mother is from,' the Valide said.

‘Oh, you knew that?'

‘But of course.' On the Valide's silken lap the cat yawned suddenly, showing its teeth, as sharp and white as razor-clams. ‘There is very little about my women that I do not know, but then she has probably told you that, hasn't she?'

‘No …' Celia bowed her head and flushed. ‘Yes, Majesty.'

‘You tell me the truth: that's very good. Ayshe is a clever girl. She sees things, but she is clever enough to conceal what she knows. Most of the time, anyway. She could go very far. But that is not the only reason why she is with me now, one of my chosen
cariye
. Do you know why I chose her?'

Celia shook her head.

‘I chose her because she comes from very near where I was born – in the village of Rezi, near the mountains of Albania. Ragusa also belonged to the Venetians once; our mountains are in the Sultan's lands, but so close that many of our people still speak the Venetian tongue. Do you understand?'

Safiye turned and looked out of her window casement towards the grey waters, the Golden Horn now slashed with sunlight.

‘Mountains!' She gave a small sigh. ‘When I was your age, how I used to long and long to see them again. Let me tell you something,
cariye
, even I am lonely sometimes,' she said. ‘Does that surprise
you? Yes, even in the middle of all this,' jewelled fingers described the room in a graceful arc. ‘My master the old Sultan is dead. All our companions from the days in Manisa, before we moved here to Constantinople, almost all of them are gone now, too.'

She turned to the dazzled girl.

‘We come here as slaves, all of us: slaves of the Sultan. We give up everything, even our names. It is a strange fact – don't you think? – that not one of us was born Ottoman, or even a Muslim. Not one of us. There is nothing to unite us except the fact that we have the honour to be the Sultan's women. And do not forget this,
cariye
: there is no higher honour.' Safiye allowed a pause to fall. ‘I chose to come here, you know, when I was just a child: chose this life of my own free will, as many of us do. But you must know that. Everyone talks, do they not? Every woman here has their story to tell. As you do,
poverina
. You have your story, and one day you shall tell it to me.'

Safiye allowed another, slightly longer pause, so that all this information should have time to sink in. Narrowing her eyes slightly, her gaze fell upon the English merchantman moored on the other side of the waters, its pennants fluttering, red and white, in the afternoon breeze. The
Hector
. A mighty vessel, by far the largest in the harbour, as no doubt the English had calculated: a symbol of their country's might. She remembered the stir it had made, only a few days ago, when it had made its formal entrance into the Golden Horn. The memory came to her of the Englishman who had been sent to deliver her gifts from the English Queen. A disquieting figure, all in black. Pale skin, hard eyes. For some reason, she could not quite think why, the thought of him still lingered at the corners of her mind. Was it possible, was it conceivable – it occurred to her suddenly – that the sugar ship she had found in Little Nightingale's room had been sent by him? It would be quite natural, after all, in their interests, indeed, to want to draw attention to themselves, not to lose their advantage. And there had been a name – hadn't there? – a name on the side of the ship. But it wasn't the
Hector
…

She turned back to Celia again, bestowed on her a brilliant smile. ‘With all of us there is always something, something that reminds us of what we once were. And with me it is the mountains. The mountains in Rezi, where I was born. But for you, what is it I
wonder? Come here, closer.' She beckoned to Celia. ‘Look down there and tell me what you can see.'

Celia looked through the window casement. ‘I see water.'

‘And what else?'

‘The tops of the trees in the palace gardens,' Celia added, conscious of the fact that the Valide was watching her carefully. ‘Clouds?'

A pause.

‘What about ships?'

‘Ships. Of course, those too.'

Safiye Sultan fell silent, curling a strand of her pearl-braided hair between her fingertips. ‘When I was young, I often used to watch the ships on the Bosphorous,' she said after a while. ‘I used to wonder which of them came from my country; whether they would ever carry me back there. But I was wise, even as a child. I knew that even if I could, I would never go back.' All of a sudden the Valide seemed to snap out of her reverie. ‘But come! I didn't bring you here to give you a history lesson.'

With an impatient movement the cat jumped from Safiye's lap, and stood shaking one paw fastidiously in front of her. A little bell on a golden chain around his neck chimed.

‘That's right, Cat, away you go. Off with you,' the Valide made a play of shooing the cat away. She turned to Celia again, with a half-smile. ‘As if Cat would ever do anything
I
told him to. Why, even the Sultan himself cannot tell a cat what to do. That's why we like them so much, isn't that so,
cariye
?'

‘Quite so, Majesty.' Emboldened, Celia held out the tips of her fingers for the cat to sniff.

‘Ah, look, he likes you. Ah no, he prefers you! Look: he's coming to sit on your lap now, so he is.'

The cat settled himself beside Celia, allowing her to trace her fingers through his coat. She could feel his bones, and his little ribcage, surprisingly fragile beneath the thick fur.

‘And there is someone else I should like to prefer you,
cariye
.' The Valide's voice was caressing. ‘Someone who I think will come to like you very much. But you did not play your part very well last night, am I right?'

The suddenness of her approach took Celia by surprise. She looked up, blushed, looked down again.

‘The … His … I was not …'

What was the word? What word could she possibly use for the act that had not, in the end, taken place?

‘I was not … honoured last night, no.'

‘Hush! I have not brought you here to criticise. Come, aren't I your friend? Why, you're trembling. Here, foolish Kaya, give me your hand.' Taking the girl's wrist, the Valide laughed her golden laugh. ‘Why, what have they been telling you? I am not really so frightening as all that, am I?' Celia felt light, soft fingers stroking the palm of her hand. ‘It would not be very clever of me to criticise the one who could become the Sultan's new concubine; why, one day perhaps even his favourite, his Haseki. Now would it?'

Celia managed a weak smile.

‘That's better. Now, you will tell me all about it. But first, little Kaya,' her hand closed around Celia's fingers. ‘Tell me your name. I mean the name you were born with. The name your father gave you.'

‘My name was Celia, Majesty.' And why was it when she replied that Celia thought she saw the shadow of a frown pass over the Valide's face? ‘My name was Celia Lamprey.'

Elizabeth woke so gently that for a moment or two she was not sure whether she had actually slept or not. Her watch said ten o'clock. She had been asleep for three hours. She dressed and went downstairs, and found breakfast still laid in a small windowless room in the basement. There was no one else around, so she helped herself to hard-boiled eggs, olives, cucumber and tomatoes, bread rolls and sticky pink jam, home-made from what looked like rose petals.

On her way back up to her room she saw an old woman sitting in the hall. The woman had positioned her chair – a curious object, which looked as if it had been fashioned out of string – in a commanding position, between two large potted palms in brass pots at the foot of the stairs. She was dressed entirely in black.

‘Excuse me,' Elizabeth went up to her. ‘I know this is going to sound like an odd question, but can you tell me the name of this hotel?'

The woman, who had been reading a Turkish newspaper, looked up at her over a pair of horn-rimmed reading glasses. Despite the shabby black clothes, a pair of exquisite golden earrings, Byzantine in design, hung from her earlobes.

‘A hotel? My dear, this isn't a hotel.'