The Sultan's Eyes (11 page)

‘If that is what you wish, Your Magnificence. A good choice. Someone who is trained in our own languages, our noble history. You have only to ask, and the finest narrators, the most brilliant scholars in the empire, would attend you here.’

‘Someone who would never dare suggest that my sister might be educated?’

‘Never!’ said Jamael, and then hesitated, unsure whether he had walked into a trap set for him by a small but very determined child.

‘That is what I thought,’ said the Sultan. ‘Mademoiselle Hawkins, my
kapici
will call for you tomorrow. Bring your favourite book to read — to both of us.’

At the palace the next day, Nuri Effendi met Willem and me at the Gate of Felicity and escorted us to the library. He showed us the rows of perfectly rolled scrolls and shelves laden with dozens of beautifully painted books. In the reading rooms, scholars sat on the floor, bent over fat volumes bound in gilded leather and resting on wooden stands. Outside the windows, the view stretched across the garden to the sea beyond.

‘Very impressive,’ said Willem, once we were seated in the sanctuary of Nuri’s chamber.

‘You are not Mistress Hawkins’s guard, are you?’ Nuri asked him, surprising us both by speaking in Venetian.

‘No,’ said Willem. ‘I’m a printer.’

‘How very interesting.’

‘A thousand apologies for deceiving you,’ I said after belated introductions. ‘We had no idea that we would ever visit the palace again, and Willem was so eager to see it.’

‘No harm was done yesterday, as I understand it,’ said Nuri. He turned to Willem. ‘But you must learn that when the Sultan tells you to wait outside, or indeed to do anything at all, you don’t argue. Anyone else would have been thrown into the Bosphorus. It is lucky for you that we do not expect infidels to understand our ways.’

‘Infidel? Me?’

I kicked Willem under the desk.

He sighed. ‘I have a great deal to learn about living in Constantinople.’

‘Obviously,’ said Nuri. He smiled at me. ‘I hear that you are to read to the Sultan?’

‘I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Why should I? A well-read prince is a good prince, or so it is hoped. This one is usually much more fond of riding his pony than studying, so I will do everything I can to help you. If there are any books you wish to borrow from the library, you have only to ask.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘It’s just that Jamael Khoury didn’t seem very pleased about it.’

‘Of course not,’ said Nuri. ‘And no wonder. He has been told to leave the palace.’

‘I didn’t mean to cause him any hardship,’ I said.

‘It is no matter. If he had been a better tutor, it would never have happened. But he was appointed by the Kislar Agha to keep the boy out of the way, not for his teaching ability.’

‘By who?’

Nuri dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘The Kislar Agha is the Chief Black Eunuch, in charge of the harem. He reports only to the Valide Sultan.’

‘There are more eunuchs?’ Willem asked.

‘It is not a dishonourable status,’ said Nuri. ‘They — we — serve the empire and the Sultan with great distinction.’

‘Oh.’ Willem took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, I —’

‘You do not understand,’ said Nuri. ‘How could you? The White Eunuchs serve the Sultan; the Black Eunuchs serve and protect the women of the palace, and the children of the Sultan, should there be any.’

‘So all these men …?’ Willem hesitated, blushing.

‘Not all are eunuchs, no. Here in the palace we train the leaders of the future, young men who will become generals or scholars or officials. The Janissary Corps you have seen — they are powerful and just as dangerous as they appear. They, too, are loyal to the Valide Sultan, but they are not eunuchs, nor are the scholars and many of the officials of the Divan. Therefore, they are not allowed in the harem or anywhere near the women.’

‘But I’ve seen women all over the place,’ I said. ‘Even in the First Court.’

‘Servants, yes. Slaves. Cooks, washerwomen, seamstresses. They come and go about the palace and the harem as required. The women of the harem are different. Surely Al-Qasim has told you this?’

‘He told us that nobody ever sees them,’ I said.

‘Except at special ceremonies, heavily veiled.’

‘But what do they all do?’ I asked.

‘I have no idea,’ said Nuri. ‘Especially when we have a sultan far too young to take a
kadin
— concubine, I think, is the word
you would use. The last sultan had several hundred
kadins
in the harem. At present, there are few, only enough to wait on the women of the Sultan’s family.’

Willem looked down at his hands.

‘Forgive me,’ Nuri said. ‘This is not your way, I understand that. But you need to know these things if you are to attend the Sultan, and especially if Princess Ay
e is in attendance.’

‘Go on,’ I said.

‘You, young man, simply cannot be present if the Princess is there, do you understand? She is not like the
kadins
, of course, and may come and go from the harem as she wishes. But foreign men must not gaze upon her or it may compromise her virtue in the eyes of any potential husbands.’

Willem nodded. ‘That was made very clear to me yesterday. But please believe that I wish her no harm. And I didn’t gaze. Much.’

‘Good.’ Nuri turned his attention to me. ‘Princess Ay
e is very bright. I have loaned her books that would defeat many of the students in the palace school, and I have no doubt she understands every word. Her brother relies on her, and she on him.’

‘I gathered that.’

‘But it is a dangerous thing to be a child of the harem, boy or girl. They, and you, Mistress Hawkins, must be very careful. Jamael Khoury is not the only one angry about your appointment. The Black Eunuchs are on guard for any slip, any indiscretion. And the children’s grandmother, the Valide Sultan …’ He looked around. ‘She will indulge the Sultan in this fancy for a while, but if there is any hint of trouble … Well, I will say no more on the subject now.’

There was a gentle knock on the door.

‘Come.’

The door opened to reveal a young woman about my age. She was dressed simply, like one of the servants I’d seen near the laundries, with golden hair in a braid that hung down her back.

‘This girl is Suraiya,’ said Nuri.

Suraiya bowed to me, then to Willem.

‘She is yours,’ said Nuri.

‘Mine?’ Willem’s eyes opened wide.

‘Not like that,’ I said. ‘Surely.’

‘Don’t be absurd,’ said Nuri. ‘Suraiya will attend to you, Mistress Hawkins, when you are in the palace, and she will also run errands if you or the Sultan need anything from me.’

‘I see.’

Willem couldn’t take his eyes off Suraiya, so I kicked him again, and then once more for good measure, until he blinked. ‘Right.’

‘Very good,’ said Nuri. ‘Now you can help me with something.’

‘Anything,’ I said.

‘Tell me how I can convince Al-Qasim to come back to the Sultan’s library and work with me once more.’

I smiled. ‘I suspect that all you have to do is ask. He has little else to do and, knowing him, he’ll be bored within weeks.’

‘That’s excellent news,’ Nuri said. ‘I shall write him a note immediately. But now, Mistress Hawkins, you had better go and read a book to our young Sultan.’

From that day, I spent every afternoon at the palace. Al-Qasim and Willem escorted me there, then Al-Qasim vanished into the library, while Willem waited loyally in the gardens or, more often, in the kitchens until I was ready to go home.

The slave Suraiya greeted us at the gate each day with gifts from the Sultan: flowers, grapes, sometimes a small bottle of
fragrance or a length of silk. She showed me how to wear my veil so that it didn’t slip from my hair all the time, and brought me slippers for wearing indoors. But she rarely spoke unless I asked her a question, and even then she said little more than the obligatory ‘I obey’.

During the hours I spent with the Sultan and his sister, Suraiya would enter quietly every so often with tea or a book we’d requested from Nuri, or simply to sit in a corner near the guards, waiting, in case I needed anything. I imagined she listened, too, to the stories I read the Sultan.

Together we read the great French and Spanish romances, and Persian stories in translation. The Sultan especially loved tales of hunting and chivalry, of brave and handsome knights risking everything for love or honour, or fighting legendary beasts.

I read them the whole of my father’s edition of Herodotus, and we talked for hours about the wonders of the ancient world. Most of all, we read
The Sum of All Knowledge
. The Sultan announced that one day he would visit the Pyramids of Egypt and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, even though I assured him the Hanging Gardens were long lost. I told them of my own travels, of the canals of Venice and Amsterdam, of the colleges of Cambridge and the crowded streets of London. We talked of nights at sea, of long days on horseback, of the Roman roads laid in straight lines more than a thousand years ago and still trudged by farmers and tinkers and armies today. We pored over the illustrations of chariots and aqueducts, ancient temples and weapons, arches and domes and distant cities.

After a few weeks, I got them to share in the reading, taking it in turns to spell out words in foreign languages or teach me more of the Arabic script. When we were alone, Ay
e removed
her veil, as did I, and I could see more clearly how alike she and her brother were, with their oval faces and soft mouths quick to smile.

The Sultan was not a particularly good scholar, I must admit; his great passions were his stable full of ponies and the weapons in the royal collection. But he was curious about the world. Ay
e had the quicker mind, and as she was so much older she was able to understand a great deal more, but they both asked a thousand questions about each chapter, each page.

I quickly came to realise that both of them thought and spoke like people more mature than their years, as if they had grown up quickly in this turbulent, demanding place. There were times when the Sultan seemed even older than me, and certainly more wise. Every day he had to cast judgements, meet diplomats and courtiers, make decisions that meant life or death to people under his rule. But sometimes he laughed like a child, asked questions and sang like the young boy he truly was.

One day, Ay
e and I strolled in the garden waiting for the Divan to end. The sky held the promise of snow, and the trees and garden beds alike were bare. Ay
e was wrapped in furs from beyond the Black Sea, she told me, a gift from a Russian prince.