The Panther and The Pearl (8 page)

Patience, he counseled himself.

You will have everything you want, in time.

“A summons from the valide pashana,” Memtaz said, shaking Sarah’s shoulder.

“Who?” Sarah inquired, sitting up and rubbing her eyes, thinking that another summons was just what she didn’t need.

“The grandmother of Kalid Shah. She wishes you to attend upon her at her apartments.”

Wonderful, Sarah thought. Still smarting from her recent encounter with Kalid, the last thing she needed was an interview with one of his relatives.

“Can I refuse?” Sarah asked wearily.

“It would not be wise. Kosem has great influence with her grandson and is very powerful in the harem. You should try to make a friend of her, mistress.”

“Do I have to go through the hamman routine to see her?” Sarah asked, standing and brushing back her hair.

“Of course not. She is a woman.”

“That’s a relief. What do I wear?”

Sarah bathed quickly and donned the clothes Memtaz selected, loose white cashmere trousers and a fitted blouse of crimson silk with voluminous white sleeves slashed with crimson satin. She let her hair hang down her back and stepped into the high-heeled pattens worn by harem women indoors, then added the earbobs Memtaz insisted upon at the last minute. They were of gold with large rubies at the lobe and a string of pearls below, almost touching the shoulders.

“Am I presentable?” Sarah asked sarcastically, when she was finally dressed.

“To see a woman,” Memtaz shrugged. “Come with me.”

Kosem’s apartment was just down the hall from the one Sarah occupied; its doors were almost as ornate as those leading to Kalid’s audience chamber, and above them the imperial crest was carved into the wood and painted with gold. The eunuchs who accompanied the women everywhere stood aside as Memtaz knocked at Kosem’s door.

“Enter,” the old lady called, and Sarah looked around in amazement as they walked into another world.

The whole of the Orchid Palace could certainly be called luxurious, but the valide pashana’s home was lush beyond description. Illuminated cages filled with exotic birds stood everywhere, along with gilt edged mirrors and carved and inlaid furniture of every description. The carpets were bright and varied, some silk, some wool, all rich and soft underfoot. The walls were draped with hangings of the finest fabrics, and painted wardrobes filled with clothing and jewels stood lined up like sentinels around the main salon, which had a ceiling decorated with lapis and gold. Inside a sitting room similar to Kalid’s, the old lady sat on an overstuffed plush couch, puffing on a pipe. She gestured for Sarah to come forward, then clapped to dismiss the group of servants standing at attendance, including Memtaz. They all vanished silently, like a mist at sunrise.

Sarah stood in front of Kalid’s grandmother, wondering how much this wizened creature knew of her relationship with the young Pasha.

Kosem looked back at her, the black gaze so like her grandson’s measuring Sarah intelligently. The pashana was dressed elaborately even by harem standards, in rose damask trousers embroidered with silver flowers, worn with an ivory silk smock fastened with diamond buttons and a waistcoat of the same material. Over this she had fastened a girdle encrusted with diamonds and pearls, and a
curdee
of magenta brocade lined with ermine was draped over her thin shoulders. Her cap was of ivory silk embroidered with more diamonds and pearls and held in place a wealth of graying hair which had once been as black as Kalid’s. Eighty-two and tiny, she was still an impressive sight, and Sarah knew that Kalid had inherited some of his startling physical presence from this woman.

“You are very skinny,” Kosem finally offered in greeting.

“I’m sorry,” Sarah said in reply, almost laughing.

“My grandson has strange tastes. It has always been so. He gets them from his mother. Too much schooling in England, that’s my opinion, but nobody listens to an old woman, least of all the Pasha of Bursa. You may sit down.”

Sarah sat.

“Please excuse my poor English. I learned it from my daughter-in-law but have not had much chance to practice since she died, except when the fancy strikes Kalid to speak it. I imagine the fancy will be striking him more often now that you are here.”

“Your English is very good.”

“The rumor of the harem is that Kalid is infatuated with you,” Kosem announced bluntly.

Sarah didn’t know what to say.

“Oh, come. Speak up. Is this true?”

“You would have to ask him that,” Sarah replied.

“I’m asking you. Has he made love to you?” Kosem asked, puffing on her
chuklib
.

Sarah could feel herself blushing furiously. “No, not really,” Sarah heard herself replying, wondering why she didn’t tell this nosy old lady to mind her own business.

“What does that mean?”

Sarah closed her eyes in an agony of embarrassment.

“Ah, I see. You are shy. Maybe that’s why he wants you. With all the women in Bursa throwing themselves at him, reluctance must be quite a challenge.”

Sarah remembered her fevered response to Kalid’s last embrace and couldn’t qualify it as reluctance, even to herself, but she said, “I imagine he will tire of this game soon enough, pashana. You have only to wait, and he will move on to someone else.”

“I’m not so sure,” Kosem said thoughtfully. “You have the manner, and the pale skin, and the yellow hair. He pines for his mother’s people, you see. He likes the spirit of Western women, as well as their looks, though I’m not sure he will admit this. Consequently, these docile beauties here hold no charm for him.”

Sarah listened, an attentive audience.

The old lady put down her pipe, setting it on the rim of an enameled dish at her side, and sat forward. “I will be direct,” she said, as if she had been anything else. “I desire a grandchild, a legitimate grandchild born of a legitimate marriage, not some harem by-blow who will never take the throne of Bursa. I want you to marry my grandson and provide an heir to the house of Shah.”

Sarah sat in stunned silence, wondering how this byzantine turn of events had happened to her so quickly. Two months ago she had been teaching school in Boston!

“Well?” Kosem said.

“I think you should talk to your grandson about that,” Sarah finally said lamely.

“I have talked to him about it, talked until my tongue was about to drop from my head. He would have no one until he saw you at Topkapi. He parted with his father’s jeweled sword, long desired by the Sultan, to get you.”

“He bought me, your highness. You must understand that in my culture such a practice is offensive. I cannot marry a man who purchased me as he would a pet animal.”

“Why not?” Kosem asked reasonably, shrugging gracefully. “You do not desire him?”

“I desire to go home!” Sarah replied heatedly. Why were all these people so dense on this subject?

“You have a man there?”

“No, but—”

“A man as handsome as my grandson?” Kosem went on insistently. “As rich and powerful?”

Sarah sighed and did not answer.

“There, you see? You do not.”

“That is not the point.”

“What is the point?” Kosem asked reasonably.

“I should be able to choose for myself,” Sarah said in exasperation. “I don’t want to be held against my will.”

“You are not unwilling. The blood comes up in your face when you speak of Kalid. He knows how to please a woman, of this I have heard many tales. If he turns his attention to you, Sarah from Boston, you will find yourself in his bed before long.”

Sarah looked away unhappily, aware that there was an element of truth in what the old lady said.

“Do you know what will happen to you if you do not marry Kalid?” Kosem asked.

Sarah looked back at her.

“He will use you as he pleases and then pass you along to his men when he has had his fill. Marriage is much preferable; when you are the mother of the pasha’s heir you will be a pashana, a valide in your time, with a life of secure luxury even when you no longer share Kalid’s bed. Without this protection, life for a woman in the harem as she ages can be very hard.”

“Are you threatening me?” Sarah asked softly, a dangerous light in her eyes.

Kosem laughed and clapped her hands. “Ah, I see what draws my grandson to you. You have courage. This is a good thing.”

Sarah waited tensely, sure that there was more to come.

Kosem leaned forward, her bright, dark eyes like raisins in her wrinkled face.

“You would not be my choice for my grandson, Sarah. I’m sure that you can understand why. A woman raised with our customs and traditions would be far more suitable, but if Kalid’s blood cries out for your frail body, it is
kismet
, and I accept it. I am only saying that you should not fight your destiny.”
 

“I do not accept that Kalid’s whim is my destiny,” Sarah countered evenly.

“It is not a whim. He has waited a long time for you. It is written on your forehead that you shall be his bride. In time you will come to know this.”

Sarah didn’t answer; there was no arguing with the old lady’s relentless determination to see a Shah grandchild in line for the throne of Bursa.

“Now we will have some refreshments,” Kosem said, as if they had been discussing the weather. She clapped her hands loudly and a servant appeared with a laden tray.

“And you can tell me all about the United States of America,” Kosem added eagerly, picking up her pipe.

Sarah resigned herself to another discussion on the debits of democracy.

“Well, what did you think of her?” Kalid said to his grandmother, watching the old lady’s face.

“Think of whom?” Kosem said innocently, lighting her pipe and puffing elaborately.

“Sarah Woolcott, grandmother. I know you sent for her, so stop pretending. Is she not beautiful?”

Kosem shrugged. “If you like milky Western women with no meat on their bones. Are you sure she is capable of childbearing?”

“Don’t you ever think about anything else?” Kalid demanded in exasperation.

“No, and neither should you! It is your duty to—”

“Don’t talk to be about my duty! I have been administering this kingdom since my father’s death, fighting off the Arabs and the Bedouins, paying duties to the Sultan and keeping the peace, preserving what your son left to me as if it were sacred ground! I have put the welfare of my people before everything and everybody, and you know this very well. Now I want this woman, and by all the prophets I will have her!” Kalid stood abruptly and began to pace about his audience chamber, his expression grim.

“I was not objecting to your choice, Kalid. She could have a hump and a harelip as far as I am concerned,” Kosem said mildly. “I merely want you to marry her and get her pregnant as quickly as possible.”

“I need time,” Kalid said obstinately.

“Why?”

“She must come to me willingly.”

“You are too proud, Kalid. Force her now, and she will become willing later. Many marriages are begun that way.”

“Not mine.”

“So she must desire you as much as you desire her.”

“More.”

Kosem smiled. “I do not think that is possible.”

Her grandson smiled back at her confidently. “Yes it is, and you will see it happen.”

Roxalena walked carefully along the cracked and weed strewn path toward the abandoned bathhouse once used by the Sultan’s harem, now overgrown with creepers and vines and inhabited by spiders and nesting birds. Abdul Hammid had built a new bathhouse on the Bosporus for his favorite, Roxalena’s mother Nakshedil, and this one had fallen to ruin. Now no one came to the gardens except harem children wandering at play and the occasional groundskeeper assigned to cut away the undergrowth.

And a pair of clandestine lovers whose fate it was to meet in secret and risk death with every embrace.

“Osman?” Roxalena whispered, peering through the unrelieved blackness of the moonless night.

“Here,” her lover said, and stepped out of the darkness to reveal himself.

Roxalena ran straight into his arms and he lifted her against him, kissing her deeply. Roxalena clung to him, and they began to undress each other with the harried urgency of forbidden passion. Osman carried the naked princess to the stone seat of the hamman inside the bathhouse and set her there, tearing off his remaining clothes and then stretching out next to her, entering her in almost the same motion. Roxalena gasped and buried her face against his broad shoulder, crying out his name as she took her pleasure from him and then went limp, falling back with her arm across her eyes. He bent to kiss her damp brow.

“Did you miss me?” Osman said, and she laughed. She lowered her arm and looked up into his beloved face, touching his cheek. Osman was dark and stocky, his black curly hair, blunt features and peasant body a powerful aphrodisiac to a woman raised with eunuchs and over manicured courtesans. She loved him with a childish fierce devotion, part defiance of her imperious father and part pleased recognition of her earthly instincts.