by Zia Wesley
He recently had the pleasure of punishing a young bath servant for stealing an odalisque’s necklace, a job he regularly requested to break the monotony of his boring guard duty. Most of the women he punished were old and fat. This one was young and firm like a boy. As he beat her, it seemed a shame to waste the naked buttocks, marked enticingly with fresh blood from the lash. He had become rock-hard with each strike, the girl there on all fours, inviting him to enjoy her. She turned her head to look over her shoulder at him, eyes smoldering as she used one hand to move her buttock flesh apart and give him access. He liked the novelty of a woman’s smooth bottom and tight ass—and she enjoyed it as well. He even asked her name. Hafise. Perhaps she was the one.
Chapter 8
The final months of the winter of 1789 were inordinately cold. Early in March, the palace furnaces burned at full blast throughout the days and nights as biting winds swept down from the North. The Sultan, weakened by a lingering cough, spent increasingly more time in his bed. He asked his gentlemen in waiting to retire from his quarters and allow him to rest. As his illness worsened, he asked Nakshidil to also cease her visits. The Kizlar Agasi kept Aimée informed of the Sultan’s health on a daily basis as his condition continued to decline. When she was finally summoned to visit, Aimée was relieved, thinking his health must have begun to improve.
The Sultan greeted her from his bed, surrounded by a thick fur blanket. A dozen braziers burned to give the room warmth, and medicinal incense filled the air, making it seem heavy. Nakshidil was shocked by his visible deterioration. He looked thinner and older, his sallow complexion more yellow than usual, and for the first time, she felt the imminent possibility of his death.
He motioned her to approach and sit on the bed beside him. When he spoke, his voice had weakened to a mere whisper.
“Do not stand on ceremony, my love, I would like to feel you close to me now,” he said.
She held his bony hand in her two small ones and kissed it. Her vigorous lover had suddenly become an old man.
“I have few regrets in my life,” he said, “but the one that lies heaviest on my heart is that we did not meet when I was young.”
She began to speak, to reassure him that his importance in her life could not be measured, but he put a finger on her lips to silence her. Tears welled up in her eyes.
“Allah does not reward the greedy, I know, but such is my regret... not to have had more time with you and my son, Mahmud.”
He began to cough, the racking sound coming from deep in his chest. When the coughing subsided, he sipped a little medicinal elixir from a cup that Aimée held, then fell back onto his pillows and tried to control his ragged breathing. Nakshidil stroked his forehead that felt unusually warm and smiled at his neatly trimmed beard that, despite his illness, was still meticulously darkened.
“I am here for you, Sire. How may I serve?” she asked.
With a bony finger he pointed to a small silver box that sat on a tray near the bed. Nakshidil fetched it and he motioned her to open it. It was filled with gilded opium pills in several sizes, the largest being about the size of a small grape.
“Small one,” he said. “I do not want to sleep yet.”
Nakshidil chose a small gold pill and poured the Sultan a cup of cool mint tea to help wash it down.
“Shall I call your physicians or Kutuchu Usta?” she asked.
“No, my love. I wish to speak to you of something very important to me.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“It is difficult for me to talk, so please allow me to speak without interruption.”
Nakshidil nodded to show she understood.
“I do not fear death—for myself. Before you came to me, I had lost interest in everything. Nothing had importance to me. I performed my duties as was expected, met with dignitaries and advisors. But I did not know how lonely I was until I met you and life suddenly became very different, meaningful and enjoyable.” He coughed, and held up a finger so she would not interrupt. “You will never know how our time together, our conversations and your unending curiosity brought me so much happiness.”
“And myself as well, my lord,” she said.
“Thank you, dear one. Now, I am concerned with your future and that of my son who I pray will one day rule. As you know, my nephew Selim will assume the throne when I die. He is a good man and I have no doubt will rule wisely. But I cannot abide the thought of you being sent to the Palace of Tears. Neither can I imagine my little son, Mahmud, cruelly imprisoned as I was in the Cage. So, I have asked Selim to permit you to remain here, as I allowed his Mother, and to keep Mahmud with you and never put him away.”
Tears ran down Aimée’s cheeks as she sobbed openly at his magnanimous gesture and at the thought of his passing. They caught in her throat as she pressed his hand to her face, and she felt the guilt of her friendship with Selim rise to her mouth like bile. She needed to tell him.
“My lord,” she barely choked out the words. “My lord, I must tell you...”
He stopped her again by raising his hand for silence, and a weary smile softened his face. “No need, little one. It was kismet I thought it the best way to ensure that your future would be safe. You are both young and he will be a good father to Mahmud.”
She could not believe the words she heard. He had known about her fondness and growing closeness with Selim. Had he arranged it? As the Sultan closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep she lay down next to him, her cheek against his, and wept. She cried for the father that she had never known, for the uncle who had adopted her when her mother died, for her first and lost love, the dashing Mr. Braugham, and for the kindly Baba Mohammed Ben Osman, who had given her a new life. It seemed that every man she ever loved had been taken from her, and now the one who had come to embody them all lay dying in her arms. She pressed her body closer to his and determined to not let him go. She would hold him close and pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary to spare him. She prayed more fervently than she ever had and wished for a priest to comfort her, to confess to, to be absolved by. Her prayers and wishes and sobs finally lulled her into exhaustion, and she fell into a fitful sleep.
She did not move from his bed throughout the night. Thanks to the opium, he slept soundly despite his difficult breathing. Shortly before dawn Nakshidil rose to discover that she was filled with a determined kind of anger that she had never known. Not wanting to wake the Sultan, she paced the room quietly to organize her thoughts. Then she summoned the palace physicians to the Sultan’s apartment.
A short while later, eunuch guards ushered the doctors into an outer room where Nakshidil waited. They were a group of six men and four women whom she greeted, unveiled and reclining on the Sultan’s raised, throne-like divan. She meant to present herself in the most imposing and imperious manner, hoping that by intimidation she might inspire them to try harder to heal their patient.
They bowed and salaamed. When she spoke there was a hard edge to her voice that she had never before heard.
“Why does His Majesty not improve?” she asked accusingly.
“His lungs are filled with water, my lady,” the head physician explained. “We have done everything that we know how to do, but nothing seems to have the desired effect.”
“Do more,” she commanded. “All of you are to remain here with him and do more.”
She rose from the divan and strode imperiously from the room. They bowed as she left and exchanged worried looks that showed they feared for their lives. What would the angry Kadine do to them if he died? They were physicians, not magicians. How could they postpone the inevitable? They stayed with the Sultan and spent the rest of the day consulting each other and every Kutuchu Usta in the palace for opinions and potions. They argued and philosophized as they measured and mixed and finally settled on three new elixirs to try.
Nakshidil had resolved to be with the Sultan whenever she chose. He had told her not to stand on ceremony, so she would not await his summons. She returned to his bedchamber earl
y that afternoon and was immediately admitted. Despite the administration of one of the new elixirs she was disappointed to see that his condition had not changed. The physicians huddled in a corner of the room, conferring and hoping that she would not confront them again. Ignoring their presence, she went immediately to the Sultan’s bed and held up a cup of serbet for him to see.
“Your favorite violet and musk serbet, my lord.”
He smiled weakly and allowed her to hold the cup to his lips to take a small sip.
“They are the very first violets of spring, my lord, and this morning it was warm enough to walk in my garden. I could smell spring in the air, and if it is warm tomorrow we will go out into the sun together.”
She chatted for several minutes as she fed him the cool drink, using her mind the whole time to will him to heal. After a few sips, he raised his hand to signal that he could drink no more, and she put the cup down.
“Rest now,” she said, as she tucked the fur blanket up under his chin and lightly placed a kiss on his forehead.
She approached the three physicians, changing her demeanor to that of a woman in charge who was gravely disappointed by the incompetence of the men to whom she spoke.
“Well, what have you discovered?’ she asked.
The eldest spoke, choosing his words carefully. “My lady, we have administered an elixir that we believe will help his majesty’s breathing and may give him relief. We will also administer a second elixir later in the day that may help to relieve the fever, and we continue to consult and formulate, my lady. We will not cease, I assure you.”
“The only assurance I want is that you will make his majesty well,” she said coldly.
“We are endeavoring to do so, my lady. We are doing all that we know how, my lady. Rest assured.”
“I shall not rest, and do not yet feel assured.”
By the time her conversation with the doctors had ended, the Sultan had, once again, dozed off to sleep. She left, going directly to the Circassian Kadine’s apartments, entering the garden without being announced.
The Kadine reclined in the welcome sunshine and frowned at Aimée’s disheveled appearance and worried expression.
“I have spent the night with Abdul and he is gravely ill... worse than I have ever seen him, and the doctors say that he does not improve. Mihrisah, what shall we do?” She sank to her knees beside the Kadine’s divan and began to sob. The Kadine stroked the top of her head lovingly.
“It is never easy to let go of someone you love, my pet. Such is life. We shall never understand.”
Nakshidil looked up into the Kadine’s eyes through tears and said, “He has made the most extraordinary gesture, Mihrisah. He knew all along about my friendship with Selim, and was glad of it. He has asked Selim to keep me here when he becomes Sultan... when he...” She could not bring herself to utter the word ‘dies.’ “And Mahmud will not be put into the Cage.”
“Oh, Selim would never put Mahmud into the Cage, Naksh, he adores the boy. And never would he send you away. But it is good to have Abdul’s blessings in this. He is a very wise man, indeed and a good one.”
“What shall I do?” Nakshidil asked.
“Whatever you can to make the time that he has left as comfortable as possible. Is he in pain?”
“The coughing pains him and breathing is difficult, but he is so frail and weak. It pains me to see him so.”
“Stay close to him, little one. That is all you can do.”
~ ~ ~
The next day the sun shone brightly and Nakshidil arranged to have the Sultan carried out into his gardens. A large divan had been prepared for him and when he was settled, Aimée dismissed his eunuchs so that they could sit together privately. His energy had improved slightly, but in the daylight his coloring looked even worse.
“I thought that you might like to visit with your son today, Sire. Would you like that?”
“I am always happy to see Mahmud.”
She summoned one of the eunuchs, asking him to fetch Mahmud, and a few minutes later the little boy came running into the garden carrying a wooden puppet. He was almost six years old and already looked as if he might be tall and lean when he grew up.
“Look what Mihrisah has given me!” he shouted as he held up the puppet for his mother to see. She examined it carefully, admiring its detail and beautiful clothes. As Mahmud’s attention shifted to his father, it changed from smiling excitement to confusion. His little brows knit together in worried concern at the unfamiliar-looking, wizened figure. He sidled up to his mother, never averting his gaze from the man on the divan, as if he did not trust the image his eyes saw.
“What’s wrong with Father?” he asked.
“Father does not feel well, Mahmud. He will feel much better when he has had some rest in the sunshine. Go and show him your new puppet.”
The boy slowly approached the divan and held the puppet up for his father to see. The Sultan reached out his hand to lightly touch the toy, and smiled weakly at Mahmud. “What is his name?” he asked.
“I do not know, Father. Mihrisah just gave him to me.”
“I think that he is a very brave puppet, just like you are a very brave boy. He must have a brave name.”
“Yes,” the boy said. “He is brave and knows how to fight. I will know how to fight soon also.”
“It is good to know how to fight, my son, but also good to know how to think and how to pray. Mohammed knew all of these things. Maybe you should name him Mohammed to remind you that you must learn how to think and pray as well as fight.”
Mahmud considered this very seriously for a moment “All right, Father. He shall be Mohammed.”
The Sultan laid his hand atop the boy’s head and marveled at the wonder of him. His own imminent death made him even more grateful to have sired an heir in whom he could place hope for the future. Nakshidil was the greatest gift he had ever received. Mahmud would be his gift to the Empire.
Mahmud played in the beautiful gardens under the watchful eyes of his nursemaid and eunuchs. He ran rather than walked, and climbed halfway up the side of one of the gilded gazebos before a eunuch stopped him. The Sultan drifted in and out of sleep, and his physicians made a fuss of changing the cool compresses on his forehead and making sure that he drank his medicines. In the late afternoon, as the day began to cool, Nakshidil sent Mahmud inside and the eunuchs carried the Sultan back to his bed.
~ ~ ~
Despite everyone’s efforts, prayers and wisdom, the Sultan’s condition worsened during the following weeks. He was barely able to take nourishment, and grew thinner and weaker by the day. Nakshidil stayed by his side as much as she could and finally came to accept the inevitability of his passing. His breathing became so labored that she marveled at how he could breathe at all. As she lay beside him she could now plainly hear the water in his lungs bubbling with each breath.
Word of the Sultan’s grave illness reached beyond the palace walls to the city, and while most citizens added the salvation of his mortal soul to their prayers, some were making other plans.
Cavus Hamza sent a messenger to the Palace of Tears with a verbal communication for Nuket Seza: “The Sultan is dying. Make yourself ready.” It would not be proper for the Janissaries to act until the forty-day mourning period was over, but they must prepare to oppose Selim before his sultanship could be ratified. Another matter would need to be settled quickly as well. Tomorrow he would bring false accusation against Hafise and have her brought to him for punishment.
~ ~ ~
Nakshidil went to the Sultan’s bedchamber shortly before dusk with a lavender serbet that he was unable to drink. She lay beside his frail body as he slept, her hand on his chest, barely able to feel the rise and fall of his breath. As the sun set, dark rose–colored light filtered through the latticed windows. When she was a child on Martinique, she and Rose had called those rays “God’s light.” She watched the light beams find their way to a silk tapestry on the opposite wall. It was a depiction of
the tree of life similar to the one that had hung in her room at Baba’s. Only at that time she had not known that it was one of the oldest classical Turkish themes. The rosy sunlight illuminated several of the birds and small animals that sat upon the tree’s branches, and she smiled at how beauty could find a way to illuminate sorrow. Suddenly, she realized that her hand was no longer moving up and down with the Sultan’s breath. She pressed lightly on his chest and whispered his name in his ear.
“Abdul?”
He made no reply.
“Abdul?” she said louder, gently shaking his still body. Then she began to scream his name and shake his lifeless body, crying uncontrollably, “Abdul, Abdul, Abdul!” until his eunuchs came and carried her from the room, still screaming his name.
There was no comforting her. She thought that she had steeled herself for this event, but now found it impossible to accept. She was able to sleep only because, without her knowledge, her Kutuchu Usta added a small dose of opium to her tea. Zahar did not leave her side, and the Circassian Kadine stopped in to check on her several times. For two days, she neither ate nor rose from her bed. Her loss encompassed all of the men she had ever loved, and she mourned each of them until she could not cry anymore. Then she asked to bathe and afterwards prepared herself for the Sultan’s funeral.
