SERAGLIO (10 page)

Suleiman, lord of Life, Possessor of Men's Necks, reclined on a divan piled with silk cushions and watched Hürrem stare down at the Golden Horn. The Çinili kiosk offered an uninterrupted view of the Horn, and there were verses from the Qu'ran emblazoned on the walls in Arabic script, yellow on midnight blue. They might as well have been sitting in a sewer for all the pleasure it seemed to give his second
kadin
. She looked pale and had hardly said a word all afternoon. What was the matter with her? Was she sick, was she pining for something?

Or was it, he thought angrily, just part of her ploy to discredit Sinan's attempts to design a new palace for the Harem?

Another fine afternoon ruined. 'Hürrem, come and sit by me.'

Hürrem settled meekly by his side. She nestled her head against his shoulder.

'What is wrong,
russelana
?'

'My Lord, it is nothing. It will pass.'

'The last time I saw you, you told me it was your time of the moon. Before that you said it was a passing melancholy. I cannot remember the last time I saw you smile.'

'Forgive me. Perhaps you should send me away.'

'Perhaps I should,' he growled. He jumped to his feet. The sudden movement startled the two black guards. Hürrem curled her knees up to her chest, avoiding his eyes. 'You must tell me what is wrong!'

'My Lord, I cannot.'

'You cannot? I am your Sultan, your Lord. Have you forgotten?' Tell me why you mope like this. I cannot tolerate such miserable spirits a moment longer!'

Hürrem covered her face with her hands.

'Will you please stop snivelling and tell me!' He snatched her hands away but the sight of her wounded face softened him. He sat down and cradled her in his arms. 'Please tell me,' he repeated, more gently.

'My Lord, I fear for my soul.'

This abrupt confession caught him off balance. He almost laughed with relief. Was that all? 'We all fear for our souls.'

'But you may find pardon in good works.'

'I do not understand.'

'You fear for your soul, why do you think I do not fear for mine?'

Suleiman realized she was quite serious. Her soul? He had never thought about it before. After all she was just a woman and women did not have souls quite like a man. Rather they were on the level of dogs and cats. Besides, though Hürrem had accepted Islam from necessity he had never thought she took it seriously.

'What is you are afraid of?'

'I begged an audience with the
sheyhülislam
. He told that despite my many bequests for mosques and hospitals I receive no credit for it in God's eyes. I shall be ignored, even in Paradise.'

'I cannot imagine that even the great God will be able to ignore you.'

Angry tears welled in her eyes. 'Do not mock me, my Lord! I am trapped in this world and the next! I live in mortal terror for my soul. What am I to do?'

Her intensity staggered him. She meant it. 'I did not know you thought so deeply about these things.'

'I am getting older, my Lord. Do you not think of heaven more these days?'

He shrugged, acknowledging that this was indeed the case. ''What exactly did Abu Sa'ad tell you?'

'He told me that no bondswoman can earn credit in Paradise, and that as long as I remain a slave I am just dust in the afterlife.' Her hands curled to fists on her lap. 'I want so much to have a soul and be saved!'

'Oh
Russelana
,' he murmured. He did not know what else to say to her.

'Trapped,' she repeated.

'No, you are not trapped,' he said. 'I shall make you free. From t
oda
y you will be a bondswoman no more. And God and all his prophets shall rejoice in another soul who has found the true path.'

'You mean it?'

'It is a simple thing. You need only to have asked me.'

She threw her arms around his neck and sobbed. Suleiman felt pleased with himself. If only all his problems were as easily resolved.

***

The next day Abu Sa'ad again granted audience to Lady Hürrem, to counsel her on affairs of the spirit. What she asked him stunned him to silence. But he gave her his
fetwa
, and gave it honestly, as he was bound to do, according to the dictates of Islam and the teachings of the Qu'ran.

The Sultan's personal quarters - the
selamlik
- were separated from the Harem by a single door. It led from his bedroom onto a cloister and then to a maze of courts and dormitories that had once belonged to the pages and eunuchs of his own retinue.

It had become known inside the palace as the Golden Road for it led directly to Hürrem's apartments; and it was along this cloister that Abbas hurried now, the sleeves and hem of his pelisse trailing the cobblestones, his cheeks puffing with exertion. He paused before going up the steps to the first floor apartment, getting his breath.

When Hürrem finally received him, he was still panting from his exertions. He dabbed at the oily slick of perspiration on his forehead with a silk handkerchief.

'Well?' Hürrem said.

'The Lord of Life commands your presence in his bedchamber, My Lady.'

'I see,' Hürrem said. 'I am sorry, Abbas, but you must inform him that I cannot come.' The Kislar Aghasi gaped at her. 'Close your mouth, Abbas, the flies are getting in.'

'You … cannot come? Was that what you said, My Lady?'

'Yes, that is correct. I am unable to attend him.'

This was the moment Abbas had dreaded. His fortune was inseparable from hers, and now she had quite plainly gone mad. Finally. God help me in my sorrow.

***

Suleiman lay sprawled on the divan, apparently calm. But his eyes were pinpoints. 'She refuses me?'

Abbas felt an oily bead of sweat trickle down his spine. His handkerchief was already sodden. 'She said, My Lord, that her life was at your command but that she might not come and lie with you without offending God and His sacred laws..'

'She lectures me on the Sheri'at now?' Suleiman was still for a long time; when he jumped to his feet the movement was so sudden and so unexpected that Abbas involuntarily took a step back. Suleiman stamped to the bed, tore off the silk coverlet and tore it in half. 'She cannot defy me! Me!'

'She says she wishes no offence. She says she heard it from the
sheyhülislam
'
s
lips. He says that being free she may not yield to you what, as a bondswoman, she could give without offence to God.'

'Abu Sa'ad told her this?'

'Yes, that was what he said. Abu Sa'ad.' Let that pompous and self righteous old fool feel the torch on his skin for a change. Let him explain this mess, in the name of God.

Suleiman drew his
killiç
from the scabbard by his bed. He looked at the blade then at Abbas. Abbas felt a hot trickle running down his leg. Lately he had found this happening more and more when he was under stress. It was the result of the castration, he knew, another indignity to pile upon the ones he already suffered.

Suleiman plunged the sword into the mattress. 'Abu Sa'ad,' he said.

'It was his
fetwa
that started this,' Abbas said.

'We must consult him then, since he knows God's mind better than I.'

Suleiman stormed out of the room. Abbas whispered a silent prayer and followed.

***

Any other man would have quaked at being roused from his bed to face the Lord of Life, the King of Kings, the Possessor of Men's Necks and bear the brunt of his towering rage. But the
sheyhülislam
feared only God and knew with unwavering conviction the heart and mind of the Infinite. He looked surprisingly calm.

There were only three men in the vast audience chamber; Suleiman, Abbas and Abu Sa'ad. The guards who had fetched the mufti from his bed now waited beyond the door.

Suleiman glowered at the cleric from his throne, hunched and seething. 'I need a
fetwa
,' he said.

Abu Sa'ad bowed his head.

'It concerns the Hasseki Hürrem - the Favoured Laughing One. You know that I have released her from my
kullar
, my slave family? She is now a free woman.'

'So she has told me,' he said.

'As a free woman may she still lie with me in accordance with God's holy law?'

Abu Sa'ad had the answer to this question ready, as it was the very same question Hürrem had sought his opinion on earlier that day. The answer remained immutable, no matter who was asking it. 'Even if you laid with her a thousand nights as a bondswoman, it would be a mortal sin before God now that she is free. It would put her soul in mortal danger.'

Suleiman looked as if he would like to strangle him. 'How might she resolve this problem?'

'She may only lie with you now without stain if she is your wife.'

The Sultan seemed to have discovered something in his mouth that was to his distaste and was considering whether to spit it out. What would happen now? Abbas wondered. Since Hürrem refused his bed and Suleiman could not possibly give her marriage, there seemed no help for it. The Sultan would go back to his Harem for comfort and Hürrem would be banished.

I imagine he will get rid of me too, Abbas thought.

'Get out,' Suleiman said. 'Both of you.'

***

Such a beautiful room, Suleiman thought. Such a vast room. How long had men laboured over this faience on the walls? And these rich crimson and blue carpets! They still bore the impressions of his Kislar Aghasi's knees. He closed his eyes and listened to the murmuring of the fountains. There was frankincense in the censers. So perfect here. If only a man's surroundings were enough to make him happy.

T
oda
y I would be no more or less miserable in a hovel, he thought. In the end it is only the heart that makes us happy. Now it comes down to a simple choice: give her marriage or give her up.

The ceremonial throne was uncomfortable but he did not have the energy or inclination to move from it. His limbs felt frozen. He sat there for hours, staring into the vaulted cupola above him, wondering what his life would be without her.

He was not alone through his despair; tradition, duty and fear sat beside him through his vigil, arguing back and forth like wives at the fish market. They all had an opinion and expressed it as forcefully as the
sheyhülislam
. He wished he did not have to listen to their carping but not one of them would go away and leave him be.

***

The Fourth Court of the Topkapi Saraya was a miniature forest of old pines and twisted cypress swarming up the slopes of Seraglio Point. On one side it overlooked the training fields of the
çerit
and the crumbling Byzantine monasteries that now served as stables; on the other was the sparkling blue of the Golden Horn. Suleiman liked to walk here sometimes, to admire the view, to watch the cavalry training.

T
oda
y he walked head down, oblivious to everything but the tumbling confusion in his mind.

Give her marriage or give her up.

How could he give her up? He could see her now, walking beside him, braided red-gold hair stirred by the wind. She was laughing and he imagined he felt the solace of her simple wisdom: 'You are the Kanuni, the Legislator. You are not bound by history, any restraint imposed on you is placed there by you yourself. You are bound only by the Sheri'at. My Lord, don't look so solemn! Is it really so terrible that you should finally choose to do what you have already done in your heart?'

'You make this marriage sound so simple,' he said aloud. 'It is our traditions that tie us to our ancestors. Ever since Tamerlane-'

'Do you really think what happened to Despina could ever happen to me? Shall any of your enemies even see the walls of Stamboul? Who is there that can defeat your army in battle?'

Suleiman climbed The Hill That Made The Camel Scream, to the very highest point of the court. From there he could look south to the islands of the Marmara; beyond lay the Mediterranean and his colonies in Egypt, Barbary and Algeria. If he looked east across the wind-whipped Bosphorus he could see Asia where the caravan roads led to Syria, Azerbaijan and Armenia. Below him the harbor was fringed with the masts of galleys belonging to Dragut, his admiral, who had turned the Mediterranean into a Turkish lake and just beyond lay Galata and the warehouses and palaces of the Venetians, the Genoese and the Greeks, who all paid him tribute. Look north and he could make out the
Gaiour
palaces at Pera; behind them was Rumelia, Bosnia. Wallachia, Transylvania, all fiefdoms of the Osmanlis.

Such an Empire.

'What king is there now who may conquer you and make me wait naked at his table?' he heard her say. 'Your Empire spans Europe and Asia and Africa. Even the Holy Roman Emperor refuses to face you in battle. Who is you are afraid of? Shah Tamasp?'

'They are all dust at my feet.'

'So which king is it that makes you tremble so that he can make you give me up … one who loves you so?'

She took him by the hand; at least he imagined that she did.

'You are the most powerful man in the world and yet you dare not do what you most desire. You are ruled by your own fear.'

Her eyes filled with tears. The fancy was so real that he reached out to touch her. But there was no one, just the wind. He realized that if he gave her up that was all there would ever be walking beside him; no one. He might sleep with the most beautiful women in the entire Empire but without her he would be alone again to shoulder the terrible burdens of the Empire and God. She was his conscience, his consolation, his counsel, his advocate and his ease. She was his friend.

She was the Vizier who could not betray him, as Ibrahim had done; she was his Harem, a thousand women in one, balm for his spirit as well as his body.

'I cannot give her up,' he said, and the decision was made. He would do the unthinkable because the alternative was unbearable.

***

When Abbas was summoned once more into the presence of the second
kadin
, he braced himself for every possibility except the one that presented itself. She was, he noted, in high spirits and wasted no time with pleasantries. 'How would you like to be rid of your girls, Abbas?' she asked him.

'My Lady?'

'The Sultan no longer has need of his harem. His concubines are to be married off. You are to start making arrangements immediately.'

Abbas could not hide his astonishment. A Sultan without a harem? 'I compliment his judgment.'

'You compliment mine,' she laughed.

'I shall proceed as you command.'

'Do you not wish to know why, Kislar Aghasi?'

'It is not for me to question the decisions of the Mighty.'

'Abbas, you are indeed a treasure! I shall tell you anyway, since you will hear of it soon enough. The Lord of Life is to dispense with his Harem because soon he is to take a Queen!'

Abbas blinked at her. 'A Queen, My Lady?'

'You are looking at the future wife of the Sultan of the Osmanlis, Abbas.' She laughed again. 'Are you not awed by the splendour of such a sight?'

'As you say,' Abbas agreed. Impossible, he thought. Impossible! Suleiman would never go through with it!

***

On the occasion of the marriage of Suleiman to the Hasseki Hürrem - the Favoured Laughing One as she was now known inside the court - Stamboul witnessed the greatest celebration it had ever seen. Bread and olives were distributed to the poor; cheese, fruit and rose-leaf jam to the middle classes. The main streets were festooned with the scarlet flags of the Osmanlis and the green standards of Islam.

There was a public procession of wedding gifts; hundreds of camels laden with carpets, furniture, gold and silver vases, as well as a hundred and sixty more eunuchs to enter the service of the Lady Hürrem. Wrestlers, archers, jugglers and tumblers performed in the Hippodrome day and night.

In another procession a huge loaf of bread, the size of a room, was dragged through the streets on a raft by ten oxen while the city's master bakers threw hot loaves covered in sesame and fennel seeds to the crowd.

Lions, panthers and leopards were paraded in the Aytmedani. Thousands of people lined the arena, and those who could not get in climbed trees for a better view. The Sultan's slaves showered fruit or money or silk among the spectators. The arrival of giraffes elicited gasps of astonishment.

Meanwhile, in the seraglio, Hürrem became queen in a simple ceremony witnessed only by herself, Suleiman and Abu Sa'ad. Suleiman touched Hürrem's hand and whispered: 'This woman Hürrem I make my wife. All that belongs to her shall be her property.'

Finally, she was Queen of the Osmanlis. It was her most perfect day.

Just one man threw a shadow over the celebration. He dogged her wedding as he had haunted her footsteps for the last seventeen years.

Mustapha.

Now twenty six years old, he waited his moment in Manisa. I am Queen now, Hürrem thought. I am safe from other women. Now there is only one man to fear. All of this means nothing while he yet lives.

***

A raised platform had been erected in the Hippodrome and from there Suleiman watched the entertainments on a throne of lapus lazuli, his sons either side of him.

Selim fidgeted on the carpets at his father's feet. He was hungry. A feast had been prepared at the Palace; venison, guinea fowl,
imam biyalti
- fruit soup with real ice - snow flavoured with honey, amber and musk. His stomach growled.

Below them, in the arena, a lioness was tearing the innards from a boar with casual sweeps of its paws while her partner yawned without interest. Selim giggled at the boar's kicking and squealing. It was on its back, turning the dust pink. The lioness circled, still watchful of its tusks.

Something made Selim turn around. Through the screen behind his father's throne he saw a pair of green eyes watching him through the gilded lattice. Mother, he thought.

He turned away again but felt her eyes still on him. How did she manage all this? He wondered. How did she ever get my father to marry her? To have such a powerful mother was both a consolation and a terror. If she could bend the Sultan to her will, she could do anything.