THE HALL OF THE Sultan’s Divan, designed by the brilliant architect Sinan, was a perfect square. The finest Iznik tiles covered the walls; a handsome fountain splashed in the middle. In one corner was a hearth large enough for a person to stand upright. The pendentive dome rising above the Sultan’s divan was decorated in graceful Arabic calligraphy with quotes from the Qur’an. In the centre of the salon was the huge couch, strewn with silk pillows and draped in green brocade and gold curtains. A high balcony, like the gallery where the women sat in the synagogue, ran the width of the room.
Hannah was in awe. She had seen so much of the harem, but never had she seen this opulent room.
Mustafa was standing next to her. He clapped his hands, making the velvet pouch hanging around his neck bounce. Four dwarfs entered the reception room bearing a huge gold filigree cage. Some said the Sultan prized these men because he was of a short stature himself and in their presence felt taller and more powerful. The Nubian eunuchs, all of whom were tall, were banished from his presence, all except Mustafa, who was permitted by virtue of his position as Chief Eunuch.
“Look, Hannah, a hundred and fourteen cooing white doves—one for each chapter of the Qur’an.”
Hannah wondered at their purpose. She did not wonder for long.
A dwarf with a rounded forehead unhooked the door of the cage. The birds took flight, swooping and swirling overhead. The scent of orange blossoms filled the air. Hannah moved toward one of the doves at her feet. Fastened to its neck and to the necks of all the birds were scented pomanders, filling the room with that glorious aroma. It was as though a silk canopy had become unmoored from the ceiling and drifted down, holding her in a veil of fragrant oranges. The room glowed with the light of hundreds of candles, guttering and dripping from the stir created by the wings of the doves. Hannah stood motionless in the perfume-heavy air. The spectacle called to mind her last meeting in the Valide’s apartments strewn with rose petals. Had her stomach not been in knots, Hannah would have wept with joy at this display.
Suddenly she remembered why she had been summoned and withdrew to a darkened corner. From somewhere, perhaps outside in the gardens, drifted the sound of a peasant tune from Anatolia played on a violin, the old country type of fiddle, made of a coconut shell with fish skin stretched across it.
A preternatural stillness filled the air. Mustafa froze, his red book under his arm. Even the fountain in the middle of the room seemed to pause its flow. From the far side of the room came the striking of a gong and the insistent beat of a kettle drum. The heavy timber doors, studded with iron spikes, swung open.
Sultan Murat III, Sultan of Sultans, God’s Shadow on Earth, Supreme Ruler of the Mediterranean and the Black Seas, the Balkans and Anatolia, Azerbaijan, Damascus, Aleppo, Egypt, Mecca and Medina, Jerusalem, all of the Arab dominions, and Yemen, entered, borne aloft on a palanquin draped in brocade and embedded with gemstones. The bearers lowered him to the floor and he dismounted. Gathering his embroidered green kaftan around him, the Sultan climbed the two steps to his divan where he arranged himself cross-legged like a frog on a lily pad. It was an absurd image, but there he was with an enormous belly and no neck. He possessed no long, darting tongue, but instead sucked the ivory mouthpiece of a narghile, the water in the pipe’s bowl gurgling, which a slave handed him.
The dwarfs withdrew, returning a few moments later bearing Leah on a gilded litter. They lowered the girl to the floor and helped her to alight. Hannah caught a glimpse of Leah before she turned to the Sultan. She wore a look not of seduction but of determination.
Almost immediately after being helped from her litter, Leah fell to her hands and knees, as protocol demanded. But instead of keeping a respectful distance from the Sultan, she crawled within a few feet of him, then, rising to her feet, stood before him, hands at her sides, fingers holding tiny cymbals. Her head drooped in a way that made Hannah wonder if she had, after all, swallowed the opium pill.
Musicians from the balcony at the far end of the room began playing softly at first, picked up speed, and then slowed again. As the rhythm of the music changed, Leah began to sway, delicate as a gazelle, moving her hips and shoulders. In the light of the candles, Hannah could see her luminous eyes, rimmed in kohl, gazing, though it was forbidden, directly into the heavy-lidded eyes of the Sultan.
Mustafa gave a grunt, which he quickly converted into a cough. The others in the room—the dwarfs who were about to depart and the litter bearers—gave a collective gasp, whether at Leah’s costume or her boldness, Hannah could not divine.
The Sultan’s posture stiffened, then relaxed. His chest rose and fell under his green kaftan, which was adorned with an embroidered peacock, one foot on a delicate peony and the other on a leaf. A smile played across his lips; his head nodded in time to the music. It was a coarse face, his lips thick and fleshy, his nose as curved as a scimitar. His head seemed large for his body and wobbled on shoulders that did not seem equal to the purpose. Hannah saw a ripple of excitement travel through him. What thoughts were passing through the dank interior of his mind?
Leah timed her movements to the beat of the music, suggestive of virginal modesty. Then, as if overcome by amorous longings, she quickened her pace. She clicked her cymbals and arched her back to show her surrender to desire. Her head tilted to one side yet her face remained as vacant as a sleepwalker’s. Was she thinking of her mother and grandmother? Was she thinking of music around fires in the mountains at night—music to celebrate weddings or victories in battle, or to mark births and deaths? Or, as Hannah hoped, was Leah contemplating the plan they had formulated and how best to bring it to fruition?
Finally, Leah gave a low cry and dropped, her forehead pressed to the floor as though in prayer. Was it Hannah’s imagination or did she see the girl look up and cast a knowing look at Hannah before prostrating herself again on the floor?
Hannah was close enough to hear the Sultan murmur, “Such beguiling eyes, like the eyes in a peacock’s train.”
Often when slothful creatures move, they move with reptilian speed. So it was with the Sultan. In one fluid motion, he withdrew a silk handkerchief from the sleeve of his embroidered robe and tossed it toward Leah. It floated for a moment, caught in a whoosh of air, then settled in front of Leah’s face.
How could something so meringue-light land like a boulder hurled from the highest roof of the palace onto a stone floor? Hannah wanted to grab Leah by the hand and run with her out of the room.
Leah lifted her head, spotted the handkerchief, picked it up and wiped her brow. Then she crawled toward the royal divan. She took the Sultan’s outstretched hand between her own and pressed it to her forehead. He drew her toward him.
Please, Hannah prayed silently. Let the plan work. Let her escape unharmed, and let them both—Hannah and Leah—survive. Hannah looked at Mustafa. Wasn’t it time for both of them to withdraw?
But Mustafa shook his head and gestured to his Book of Couchings. “Hope must not substitute for fact. There must be no inaccuracies in the official record.”
Hannah wished she could turn into the feather of a dove and float out the window to the gardens outside. The Sultan lifted Leah onto his lap and caressed her cheek, kissing her with foolish enthusiasm, as if playing with a child’s doll. Then he lay back on the divan, leaning on one elbow while she arranged herself against the length of him. Leah was almost exactly his height.
Leah reached for the bowl of fruit on a table next to the divan and bit off a piece of apple. She held it between her lips and then slowly moved her mouth toward the Sultan’s face. His mouth opened and he took the morsel into his mouth. Then, he motioned to have the curtains of the divan drawn.
Mustafa stepped forward and closed the red curtains. A few moment elapsed before the divan began to shudder under the Sultan’s movements, or under Leah’s, Hannah did not know which. Instead of watching the divan vibrate, slowly at first, then faster, then at a frantic pace, Hannah focused her attention on the doves, many of which had perched on wall sconces and on the tall pillars supporting the divan. With the movements, they left their roosts in search of more stable perches. One little hen gave her tail a twitch, and with a soft, fluty cry flew out the window.
Hannah could avert her eyes but she could not block her ears. There was a squeal, like the whimper of a frightened lamb, then a deeper sound, a quick exhalation like a boar in full rut. From the balcony, behind a filigreed tulipwood screen where the musician played softly, came another noise, a muffled cry. Hannah looked up to see the flash of blue pelisse and hear the swish of footsteps in felt slippers. This was the way in the palace—whispered confidences, words murmured behind upraised hands, downcast eyes concealing treachery, spy holes in ceilings, balconies connected to blank walls, passageways leading to non-existent rooms. If it was Safiye on the balcony, could anything be more painful than watching your adored husband with another woman?
After a few minutes, the salon fell silent but for two sounds: the snores of the Sultan, God’s Shadow on Earth, and the scratching of Mustafa’s pen as he recorded in The Book of Couchings the Sultan’s triumph.