The Panther and The Pearl (9 page)

Osman was the best part of her life.

“Did you find out about Sarah?” Roxalena asked, sitting up and looking around for her clothes. “Shirza told me you had heard something.”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“Tell me.”

“Your father sold her to Kalid Shah.”

Roxalena stared at him.

“It’s true,” Osman said, nodding. “I had it straight from the body slave to the khislar. Do you remember that sword studded with cabochon rubies your father always coveted? It was in the Shah family for long years, a souvenir of the Suleiman campaign against the Armenians.”

Roxalena nodded.

“Kalid Shah traded it for your friend. And threw fifty thousand kurush into the bargain.”

“Kalid kept that sword in the Orchid Palace vault. He wouldn’t let anyone touch it but himself.”

“He must have wanted your Sarah very much.”

“No wonder my father wouldn’t talk to me about it. He’s probably taking that sword to bed with him. Oh, he’s such a liar. I can’t bear him, Osman.”

Osman stroked her arm silently. He had heard many such outbursts before, and he knew that a large part of his attraction for Roxalena was that he was the last person on earth the Sultan would have chosen for his daughter. It didn’t matter; he loved the little princess so much that her reasons for loving him back didn’t concern him.

“We must get word to Sarah’s cousin. He has the same name, Woolcott, and owns a rug business in the city. I’m sure his government could do something to help,” Roxalena said.

Osman was silent. He was not so sure. American businesses in Ottoman Turkey traded by the sufferance of the Sultan, and the embassy was notoriously reluctant to upset him.

Roxalena stirred, and it took him a moment to realize that she was laughing.

“What is it?” he said.

“I told Sarah that she had caught Kalid’s eye, and she dismissed it. Now she is in his harem, purchased at an exorbitant price.”

“And?”

Roxalena grinned. “And the Pasha of Bursa cannot guess just how much trouble his prize will be.”

Chapter 4

“It is time for you to attend the Justice hearing, mistress,” Memtaz said.

“I’m not going,” Sarah said, looking up from her book.

“It is a direct summons from the pasha.”

“Tell him I died and cannot be disturbed.”

Memtaz looked at Sarah sadly. “It will not go well with me if you ignore the request, mistress.”

“That’s blackmail, Memtaz.”

“Why should you not go? You just spent three hours preparing in the hamman, and your clothes are all ready.”

“Don’t remind me about the hamman. I have endured enough hostile stares to last me for the rest of my life. Who is that tall woman with the russet hair who’s always getting a skin treatment or a massage? She keeps looking daggers at me every time I appear.”

“Looking daggers?”

“Staring at me with hatred. Not that any of the harem women seem particularly glad to see me.”

“The redhaired woman is Fatma. She was the favorite before you came here.”

That gave Sarah a moment’s pause. “The favorite? She was sleeping with Kalid?”

Memtaz nodded. “Up until about six months before you arrived. I think he became bored.”

“Then it was over before he ever met me?”

“Yes.”

“So why am I the object of her anger?”

Memtaz shrugged. “It is one thing to fall out of favor. It is another to be replaced.”

“She has not been replaced, Memtaz. I am not going to bed with Kalid Shah.”

Memtaz said nothing.

“It’s the truth, Memtaz.”

Memtaz handed her a pair of tissue linen shalwar and Sarah stepped into the trousers automatically.

“No one will believe it,” Memtaz said philosophically.

“Why on earth not? Is everybody in the empire ruled by a runaway sex drive?”

“They will not believe it because you are both young and beautiful, and the pasha purchased you at a high price and has made you his favorite. Why else would he behave so?”

“Maybe he wants to discuss international politics with me,” Sarah said dryly.

Memtaz handed her a
yelek
, a loose blouse with immense hanging sleeves, and Sarah donned the garment and the matching girdle resentfully. Both pieces were of lilac silk and the girdle was embroidered with silver thread and marquise amethysts.

“Very pretty,” Memtaz said approvingly, proffering a purple gauze drapery with a silver border to be worn as a shawl and then lifted over the head as a veil. Sarah tossed it over her shoulders and looked at Memtaz with finality.

“Am I ready?” she asked.

“You will be very satisfactory in those clothes, mistress,” Memtaz said serenely.

“Please stop calling me ‘mistress.’ You are not my slave.”

“I am your slave.”

“Then I release you.”

“You cannot release me. Only the pasha can do that, and he has assigned me to you to wait upon your every need.”

“Then call me Sarah.”

“I could never do that, mistress. It would not be seemly.”

“Well, I’ve got a news bulletin for you, Memtaz. In my country it is not ‘seemly’ for people to go down on their knees bowing and scraping before other people. It makes me very nervous to see it here. So if you want to please me, you will stop throwing yourself on the floor every time I look at you.”

Memtaz dropped her eyes, but said nothing.

After a few moments Sarah sighed and put her hand on the little slave’s shoulder. “Memtaz, I’m sorry. It’s not fair for me to take my irritation out on you.”

“Irritation?”

“Annoyance, unhappiness at my situation. I don’t want to see Kalid again. Our last meeting ended . . . badly. And here I am gilding the lily to answer another summons from the great man.”

“You will see him in a group, mistress, not alone. The hearings are public. He merely wants you in attendance.”

“And what happens at a hearing?”

“The pasha metes out justice.”

“I’d pay good money to see that,” Sarah muttered bitterly, holding out her wrists as Memtaz adorned them with silver bangles.

“Beg pardon?” Memtaz said.

“I don’t see how an unjust man can mete out justice.”

“The pasha is known as a very fair prince, and his people consider themselves fortunate to be governed by such a ruler.”

“Hmmph,” Sarah said, and then pushed away the silver diadem Memtaz was trying to drape across her forehead.

“I can’t wear that, Memtaz, it makes me crosseyed.”

“What is that?”

“I can’t see! Look, I’m decked out like a Christmas tree as it is. Let’s just go.”

“What is a Christmas tree?”

“A fir tree decorated with baubles. In my country we cut them down and bring them into our houses in celebration of a holiday.”

Memtaz raised her brows. “And you say that our customs are strange?”

Two eunuchs appeared in the doorway expectantly.

“It is time,” Memtaz said.

Sarah glanced around briefly at the lavish apartment. The ikbal’s chamber was only slightly smaller than Kosem’s, and Sarah did not have quite the extensive collection of jewelry and clothing that littered the valide pashana’s rooms, but in other respects the two apartments were similar. Mirrors and gilt furniture and colorful rugs abounded, and the sandstone walls cast a rosy lavender glow over every luxurious appointment.

Sarah looked away wearily.

She was truly a bird in a gilded cage.

“I’m ready,” she said, and the eunuchs parted to let her pass.

Kalid entered his throne room behind the procession of functionaries and saw immediately that Sarah was missing. The seat next to Kosem was empty.
 

Kalid walked across the immense bird of paradise rug that covered the pink marble floor and ascended the red carpeted steps leading to his throne. The chair itself, of rich dark mahogany and contrasting balsa wood, was carved with intricate arabesques painted in gold and lapis, and the high latticed back was studded with precious gems. He turned and faced his audience, and all of the people in it bowed with one motion, arms folded at midsection, heads inclining toward the floor. He waited until they looked up again and then sat regally, extending his hand to a scribe who gave him a list of cases to be decided.

The men were seated on his right, his chief clerks and accountants and the procurator of each district in Bursa, as well as his khislar and the caption of his guards. To his left were the women, all veiled, his grandmother and lesser relatives from the harem, present to witness the dispensing of his legendary wisdom. A selected audience of common people were also admitted to this ceremony once a month, and they rustled their clothing fitfully, awed to be in the presence of the pasha.

Only Sarah was absent.

Kalid looked over the sheet of paper in his hand and then glanced up again. Everyone waited for him to begin.

At that moment a side door opened and two eunuchs came through it, followed by Sarah and Memtaz. Kalid held up his hand, and they all stopped moving.

Sarah looked around the packed room, then at the dais, where an empty seat loomed next to Kosem.

Sarah had a sinking feeling that it was for her.

Kalid said something in Turkish and gestured pointedly toward the dais.

“Go up and sit next to the valide pashana,” Memtaz whispered fiercely. “Hurry, you are already late.”

It seemed to take an eternity for Sarah to cross the ocean of carpeting that led to the dais, and she could feel all eyes on her back as she stepped up to take her seat. She avoided Kalid’s gaze as she folded her hands in her lap and looked at a point on the far wall above his khislar’s turbaned head.

Kalid clapped his hands and the hearing began. The procurator of each district had selected a case appropriate for the pasha’s review, and Sarah became interested in spite of herself as the event progressed. She could not understand most of what was being said, but Kosem gave a running, sotto voce translation of the proceedings that enabled Sarah to follow each judgment as it was rendered.

The first man complained that a neighbor had stolen his wife, and it evolved during the testimony that the deserted husband had beaten his spouse. Kalid dissolved the first marriage and awarded the wife to the neighbor, explaining that any man who mistreated his wife deserved to lose her.

Kosem nodded vigorously. “Very sound,” she commented to Sarah, who studied her captor over the veil covering her nose and mouth as he listened to each petitioner in turn and then rendered his opinion.

Kalid was wearing a dark blue military uniform with a gold sash draped with medals. He gave a full hearing to each person who spoke, then replied thoughtfully, in a carefully modulated voice that commanded attention as well as respect. By the time he reached the fourth case, a boundary dispute between two sheepherders over grazing land, Sarah knew why he had insisted on her presence at this hearing. He obviously wanted her to see him in a role other than sexual predator, and his plan was working.

She
was
impressed.

“My grandson is very wise, is he not?” said the valide pashana, as if she had read Sarah’s mind.

Sarah turned to look at the old lady, who was watching her with a sly smile, her eyes full of knowledge above her silken veil.

“I suppose he’s doing well,” Sarah conceded.

“Well! There is no fairer pasha in the Sultanate, and everyone says so. And none more handsome, surely you would agree?”

Sarah had to smile. Kosem was relentless.

“He shaved his beard for you, did you know that?” Kosem hissed. “He thought you would find him more attractive without it, since it is the Western custom to go clean shaven.”

Kalid was enormously attractive to Sarah with or without the beard, and doubtless he knew it. “Actually, beards are in style in the West now, especially in my country and in England. The Prince of Wales has a full beard,” Sarah replied perversely.

“But why cover such a beautiful face with hair?” Kosem said. “Kalid favors his mother. She was a gavur, but she was a lovely creature. Too pale, of course, like you, but he has her compelling features. Except for the nose. He has his father’s nose.”

Kalid’s khislar, a tall Sudanese named Achmed, turned and threw Kosem a dirty look.

Kosem shot him a rude gesture in return. “He wants me to be quiet,” Kosem muttered to Sarah. “The man is overbearing. Kalid indulges him too much. I’ll be dead soon enough, and then he’ll hear nothing further from me.”

Sarah turned away and bit her lip to keep from laughing.

For somebody who talked about dying all the time, Kosem was remarkably full of life.

The hearing went on for more than two hours, with Kalid disposing of some twenty cases before he was done. Then he concluded the proceedings and left the throne room without looking at Sarah once.