by Zia Wesley
A dozen of Nakshidil’s personal guards gathered in a tight circle around her person, swords in each hand, preparing to die in her defense.
“Where is my son?” she asked in a panic. Her eyes searched the room, but she did not see Zahar or any of her other servants.
“In his quarters being protected as you are, majesty,” the head guard replied.
Screams of men and women could be heard above the unfamiliar sounds of fighting coming from within the palace. Swords clashed as glass and crockery shattered, bodies slammed into walls and into each other. Aimée had never heard chaos of this magnitude and tried hard to organize her thoughts amidst the commotion, but pandemonium ruled. She stood motionless within the circle of men, completely covered from head to toe in a sapphire-blue ferace, her mind and heart racing and the sound of her own blood beating in her ears like a bass drum.
“Where is the Sultan?” she asked helplessly.
“We have no way to know, Your Grace,” he said.
“We must be sure he is safe,” she whispered.
“Forgive me, Your Grace, but we cannot leave you now.”
She was helpless and could do nothing for either Selim or Mahmud. Attempting to calm the panic that brought a taste like metal into her mouth, she slowly unwound the rosary beads wrapped around her wrist and began praying to the Blessed Virgin.
“Holy Mother, full of grace, please find it in your heart to protect those I love. Please keep them safe from harm, I beseech you. If God demands a soul be taken, let it be mine, not theirs.”
She recited the rosary quietly to herself with all of the intent and focus she could muster, hoping her concentration might drown out the terrible sounds penetrating her walls. Losing all sense of time, five minutes or five hours might have passed when the inner door to her apartments was breached by what appeared to be hundreds of men. They poured through the door like an infestation of rats, screaming and swinging their swords so ferociously she thought they might cut each other to pieces. Her guards fought until they fell, but could not stem the tide of Janissaries, and in just a few moments she stood alone, shaking from head to toe, surrounded by dead men and glad that no one could see her.
The attackers parted, making an aisle through which a man approached. As he did, she quickly replaced the rosary on her wrist.
Without bowing or showing any form of respect, he said, “Nakshidil, Valide Sultana?”
She nodded her head in reply.
He pointed to the floor with his finger the way you would motion to an obedient dog. “Follow behind me,” he said. He turned and walked out of the room, and she followed as instructed.
The halls of the residence were littered with bodies of loyal guards, serving women, and a few Janissaries. As they walked, the soldiers shoved the bodies aside with their feet so they could pass. The smell of fresh blood, feces and urine filled the air, and she held her nostrils closed to breathe only through her mouth, trying frantically to identify what fallen bodies she could, hoping not to recognize anyone but recognizing most. Neither Perestu nor her son was amongst them, and she allowed herself a ray of hope for their safety.
Surrounded by the pack of soldiers, she walked through the halls leading to the seraglio, and suddenly felt a new fear. What if they mean to enter the harem? Her mind began skipping forward to a myriad of horrible possibilities—rape, desecration, murder, torture. She was so distraught she found it difficult to breathe.
They stopped in front of the large double doors leading into the women’s quarters. Bodies of guards were piled almost to her waist blocking the doors.
She found enough of her voice to say quietly, “Haram.”
The soldier turned to look at her and made a snorting sound. “Not for you it isn’t,” he responded. He barked a command at the soldiers, who began lifting the bodies and moving them aside to free the door. He stood aside and jerked the door open. With a mocking bow and sweep of his arm he ushered her in, saying, “Back to where you started, eh?”
She stepped into the courtyard surrounded by three-story residences as the door closed with a loud bang. No women were present. “Ladies,” she called in a quavering voice, “It is I, Nakshidil Sultana.” She wanted to crumple onto the floor and wail, but would not allow herself that luxury. The women were hiding and must feel petrified with fear. It was her duty to calm them, to reassure them that all would be well. But would it? How could anything be well again when everything was already lost—or she would not be standing here like this? She slowly removed her ferace.
“Namay?” Perestu’s frightened voice whispered.
“Yes, little bird, where are you?”
The young woman emerged from the shadows of an archway, accompanied by a young Indian girl with a bandaged arm. “Namay,” she said again as the women hugged each other. “I was coming to visit Sita, who slipped in the bath and hurt her wrist.”
“Mahmud, Selim?” Aimée asked.
“Selim, I saw them take him,” she sobbed.
“But they did not kill him?”
“No, they took him.”
“Where?”
“I do not know.”
“Thank God he is alive. And Mahmud?”
“I do not know, Namay. I did not see him.”
Other women began to cautiously appear, all asking questions at once: “What happened?”
“Who is doing this and what did they do?”
“We heard screams. Natanya is missing, and Gala and Shira.”
“Mikayella, where is Mika?” someone wailed.
Women began running into the courtyard from the baths where they had hidden, some of them naked and wrapped only in towels. What appeared to be about a hundred women all spoke at once, many crying and some too stunned to speak at all.
Nakshidil raised her arms, trying to appear calm and strong to quiet the hysterical women. “Ladies, please compose yourselves, and I will tell you what I know, which is very little at present. The Janissaries somehow managed to breach the palace and overwhelm our guards. There are thousands of them.” Several women began to wail, and she had to raise her voice to quiet them again. “But they did not break the laws of haram—they dare not—and we are safe here. We must wait until someone is able to bring us word. Where is the Kizlar Agasi?”
No one knew the answer to that question yet.
It had been difficult for Nakshidil to find writing paper, pen and ink in the seraglio, as most of the women neither wrote nor read and none corresponded with the outside world. After several days she found enough of everything to finally compose a plea for help. When it was written, she gave it to a trusted serving woman in the main kitchen. “It is the most important message I have ever sent,” she said. “All our lives depend on its safe delivery. You must find a way.”
“Fear not, your grace. I will not fail you,” the woman replied.
June 5, 1807
Dearest Baba,
I pray that these will not be the last words I ever write and that they find their way into your hands. If you are unable to speed with haste to our rescue (again) all will be lost—my son, the Sultan, the Empire and I.
The palace has been seized by thousands of Janissaries, who slaughtered our people—guards, servants, cooks and eunuchs. I do not know how many, nor how many may have perished outside our walls. Mahmud and I are held like prisoners within the seraglio among the Sultan’s women. Why the soldiers did not harm or molest us, or what they intend, we do not know. The Sultan has been put into the Cage.
It grieves me terribly to tell you that following the horrific debacle, the body of our old friend, the Kizlar Agasi, was found close to the harem doors. He had been run through with many swords, no doubt trying to protect the women in his care. Many of the other eunuchs were found in similar states, and there are only twenty here with us.
Thus far, we have gained little information from the outside and can only surmise that the Sultan’s army must have been defeated. Perhaps they were simply overrun by the sheer numbe
rs of Janissaries, and I know not of our ships, which sat at the ready in our harbor. Is it to be more terrifying once we learn our fate?
We know that Mustapha sits on the throne, God help us all.
We are sending letters to all of the others who have pledged their fealty to us. I dare not say their names, in the event this should fall into enemy hands. I fear we are at war. The only connection to the outside rests with the tradesmen who are permitted access to us lest we starve. You can imagine how terrified they are made to feel should they help us in any other way.
I hope the messengers, riders and ships are still in place to deliver this to you and that you come to our aid quickly. Please, learn what you can, send word and come quickly, I beg.
Chapter 18
On May thirtieth, after witnessing the onset of a bloody revolution, the French Ambassador, Baron Sébastiani and his wife, Fanny, fled Istanbul to sail for France. Most of the French officers who had been training Turkish troops, along with those overseeing the production of cannon and munitions, also left. Having survived the revolution in their own country, they had no desire to become embroiled in another foreign one, on foreign soil.
As they watched the glistening dome of the Blue Mosque catch the rays of the rising sun and get smaller and smaller, Fanny placed her hand over her husband’s and looked up into his eyes. “Will they kill her?” she asked.
“The Valide?”
She nodded. “Yes, Nakshidil. Will they?”
“Most likely,” he said. “I am sorry. I know how fond of her you are.”
“I was about to say how barbaric they are, but then I remembered our bloody revolution, our heads falling.” She sighed deeply. “Why does the world have to be so horrid?”
“The price of freedom, my dear, and France is better off as a result,” he said. “Bloodshed has always been the currency of change, I’m afraid.”
“I suppose they will also kill the Sultan,” she said bitterly.
“He is most likely already dead and the new one on the throne.”
“Isn’t he the terrible young man we heard such horrid stories about?”
“Yes, Mustapha. The Sultans have a long history of insanity, you know. Many of them were quite mad. It’s no wonder, being raised in a cage like an animal. I was told the story of one Sultan Ibrahim, who had been put into the Cage at the age of two. Twenty years later, after having no education or human contact of any kind, he was put on the throne. One day, he became angry at his wives... based on a rumor of infidelity they say. He ordered all the wives to be bound and wrapped individually in burlap sacks weighted at the bottom. Then he loaded them onto boats that sailed out into the Bosporus and had them simultaneously thrown into the sea.”
Fanny gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.
“Two hundred and eighty women,” he said.
She shook her head.
“Some said it was done because he was curious about what kind of sound a hundred drowning women might make. One woman actually escaped from the sack and was rescued by a passing boat bound for France. She told the whole story to the passengers, many of whom refused to believe its veracity.”
”Surely, this did not happen in recent years,” Fanny said.
“No, about one hundred fifty years ago. It was confirmed by a diver a few days after the event and the Sultan was put back into the cage and replaced by his seven year old son. He entered history as Ibrahim the Deranged.”
“What a terrible story,” Fanny said. “I can hardly believe it.”
“Extraordinary that Sultan Selim was not immured. No doubt that explains his reasonable and civil disposition. It’s a shame, really. He was finally putting the Turks on a forward path.”
“What will happen now?” she asked.
“God only knows what that madman will do. It is why we are leaving in such haste.”
Baron Sébastiani was right on one count and wrong on another: Mustapha sat on the throne less than twenty-four hours after the attack, but he had not killed Selim. Instead, at the Ulema’s insistence, he imprisoned Selim in the Cage and allowed Mahmud to remain with his mother in the seraglio.
Mustapha’s second official act should have been to honor his mother and proclaim her Valide Sultana, the position for which she had connived, fought and murdered. But no one could make him do anything ever again, and his hatred was greater than any sense of responsibility he should have felt. He was finally free of her, of the palace of dreadful women, the Cage, and of everything and everyone who caused him unbearable pain. Reveling in his newfound power, he did not even bother to send word to Nuket Seza. Instead, he began to plot his revenge against them all. But first, he wanted to sample the former Sultan’s odalisques, three and four at a time. Orchestrating that was the Valide’s task and the reason he allowed her to live.
Sultan Mustapha’s newly discovered lust appeared to be unquenchable. He sent requests for women to the Valide all day and into the early hours of the morning. His demands provided great activity for the harem women and gave them a sense of purpose. Hoping to attain positions of favor, they overlooked his lack of appeal and brutish personality. They spent their days primping and preparing, hoping to be chosen. When they were, they bore their welts and bruises proudly, and none yet suffered broken bones or anything worse. If a beating was part of the cost of gaining status, which would mean a private apartment, jewels and an income, most were willing to pay.
The new Sultan spent almost no time on anything else, just as the Ulema intended. They never wished him to actually govern. In fact, they carefully prevented his meddling in any affairs of state. With his attention limited to immediate surroundings, no notice would be paid anywhere else and the priests could run things unimpeded.
Without a Kizlar Agasi, management of the seraglio fell to Nakshidil, and she dared not make any requests, afraid to anger Mustapha or make him feel chastened. Instead, she made do with what was available. Deliveries of food to the seraglio kitchens and bathing necessities to the hamams continued fairly regularly and through those purveyors, she was able to obtain most of what she required. Knowing Mustapha’s mercurial and capricious nature kept her on her guard, and she did not know if his hands-off attitude toward her might change. She prayed fervently it would not.
Selim’s previously “favored” odalisques now belonged to the new Sultan. The only exempted women were bath servants and serving women, most of whom were too old to be of interest to Mustapha anyway. Both Perestu and Besma, Mahmud’s lover, were among these lucky few. Nakshidil hoped that no one would reveal their relationships with her son and the Sultan, lest he summon them out of spite. Fortunately, new girls began to arrive every week to provide a constant distraction.
Five weeks after the debacle, Nakshidil was told that a new Kizlar Agasi would arrive the following day. What the message failed to convey was that the man lacked the most important requirement of that position. He was a white eunuch, which meant his testicles had been taken, but his penis remained intact. His name was Cavus Hamza.
Upon his arrival, the women instantly became obsessed for the new Kizlar Agasi was not only intact, he was young and strong and posed no risk of an unwanted pregnancy. The odalisques literally threw themselves at his feet and Nakshidil’s new task became the aversion of disasters created by having a functional yet sterile man in the harem. The dichotomy of the situation was classic—the wolf guarding the sheep. However, this wolf showed little interest in the Sultan’s women for any purpose other than punishment.
Throughout the summer and fall, very few written or spoken communications found their way into the seraglio. No responses had been received from any of Sultan Selim’s supporters, and Nakshidil had no way of knowing whether her pleas for help had ever been received. In the third week of November, a letter finally broke the silence. Perestu delivered it wrapped in a silk napkin on a tray of coffee and sweets. Nakshidil opened and read it alone in her room by the light of an oil lamp. It was dated ten weeks earlier.
&
nbsp; September 3, 1807
To Her Most Gracious Valide Sultana, Nakshidil Sultana, Mother of the Heir, Keeper of the House, Guardian of the Sultan’s Women, Benefactress of the Poor, Mother of All Orphans and Exemplar of All That Is Good,
I greet you and wish upon you good health and abundance in all things. May your sorrows also be mine.
It is with a heavy heart I answer your most recent letter and your plea for my aid. Without a moment’s hesitation, my ships and my men speed to your side. They sail on the morning’s tide. I, however, shall not bask in the comfort of your divine presence nor listen with delight to your melodious voice. All the stamina of my youth, which now seems to have been spent so carelessly, has fled this ancient vessel and try as I might to rally, my flesh and bones will not respond. Alas, I am forced to accept the truth that my old body has retired from its service of me and my anger towards its imposed rest appears useless.
As you know, I am fortunate to have nine capable sons, each a captain of his own ship, and fifty more ships as well. They rush to your side with all the speed of the righteous wind in their sails. They are my steadfast enforcers now, my stalwart and capable arms, legs and eyes, and they carry with them the fierce purpose of my youth. They are Sultan Selim’s to command and shall fight to their deaths for the Empire and for you. If you are reading these words, they are already moored within striking distance of Istanbul. I have sent word to all other loyal Pashas throughout the empire, and expect they too will hasten to your aid.
In the unlikely event our valor proves fruitless, and our cause be lost, I beg you, my lady, to avail yourself of their service on your own behalf. Please allow one of my ships to speed you and your son to the safety of my home in Al-Djazāir, and to my side. There is no need for you to suffer the consequence of war and no shame in taking care for your own safety. I beg you to do so if for nothing more than the foolish enterprise of comforting an old friend.
The enclosed gift needs no explanation other than to say that I kept it all these years as a precious memento of an exquisite young woman who captured my heart and who holds it still.
