Tears of Pearl

by Tasha Alexander

  “Taxing?” I asked, forcing myself to meet her clear eyes.

  “I have heard stories of the West, of the European courts. Didn’t believe them, but perhaps I should have. Is everyone in England so tense?”

  This made me smile. “Yes, actually.”

  “Tedious.” She pushed her hands against the bench, straightening her arms and arching her back.

  “Different,” I said. “But I don’t know that tedious . . . yes, you’re right. Tedious.” We both laughed, and although I felt somewhat less exposed, my degree of anxiety dropped little more than the weight of a hummingbird.

  “I would never go there,” she said. “You know that Perestu sent only those whose English is good to speak to you today.”

  “I appreciate it. How long have you lived in the harem?”

  “Since I was a girl. I can’t imagine being anywhere else.”

  “You don’t feel . . . restricted?”

  “Of course not. Our options for amusement are endless.”

  “But you can’t leave?”

  “We take excursions whenever we want. I was shopping in Pera yesterday. Not everyone’s as discontent as Roxelana.”

  “You know her?”

  “Her room is near mine.”

  “Are you friends?”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” she said. “Roxelana is very careful about her choice of confidantes. There’s an air of superiority about her—she won’t even pray with any of us. Furthermore, she prefers the friendship of men.”

  “In the harem?”

  “The guards. Jemal is a favorite of hers.”

  “I’m surprised to learn that,” I said.

  “Who else are we to flirt with? Each other? Jemal is useful. Bezime may have no power anymore, but she can sometimes help us—and he arranges it.”

  “Help you how?” I asked, cataloging away in my head the fact that Roxelana and Jemal were friends.

  “She practices the dark arts. Can tell our fortunes, read our charts. And she’s something of a physician as well. There’s no one I’d rather have prescribe a treatment for me when I fall ill.”

  “And Jemal tells you what she suggests?”

  “He brings us her medicines.”

  “I understand he knew Ceyden well.”

  “Everyone knew her,” she said. “She was impossible to escape.”

  “What can you tell me of their relationship?”

  “It wasn’t so unusual. As I said, we’ve no one to flirt with but the guards. Most of us have a favorite.”

  “Was she as close to him as Roxelana is?”

  “Not at all. But Ceyden was less discreet and drew too much attention to them.”

  “Did he do anything to help her get the sultan’s notice?” I asked.

  “He let her believe he did, but I never saw anything that suggested he’d succeeded. Jemal’s a pleasant enough distraction,” she said. “But I wouldn’t consider him reliable.”

  Melek had returned and motioned for me to follow her, putting a stop to our conversation with a sharp shake of her head. I stood, unsteady on the ill-fitting wooden clogs, and shuffled behind her to a large, octagonal marble platform in the middle of the room. Following the lead of the women who were already there, I lay down, resting my head on a small pillow, my heart racing.

  Melek pulled a mohair mitt onto her hand and began scrubbing my skin with an earnest vigor, so hard that it almost hurt, leaving no inch unpolished, fingertips to toes, until I was tingling. I flipped onto my stomach and she continued with my back, pausing to show me the horrific amount of residue that had collected on the mitt. When she’d finished, she had me stand and soaked me with water before helping me to lie back down. Next came a gentle massage, another rinse, and another scrub. This time, instead of the mitt, she used a long, tail-like brush, which she rubbed with soap. As she moved it over my body, it left behind inches of fine lather. More rinsing followed, and now when I stood up, my self-consciousness had started to fade, but I kept my eyes closed, wanting neither to see the other women nor to notice them watching me.

  I had to look, though, when she took my hand to lead me across the room to a small wooden door, through which she ushered me. The room beyond it was small, verging on claustrophobic, and radiated a heat that reminded me of the searing burn that accosted a person standing on the Acropolis in Athens on the hottest of summer days. I sat on the marble bench that lined the circumference of the space and leapt up almost at once, my delicate skin unable to stand the temperature. Laughter bounced off the walls.

  “You are unused to the warmth?” Roxelana was stretched out on the other end of the bench.

  “Warmth is not a strong enough word,” I said, gingerly sitting back down and cringing at the result.

  “It’s marvelous when you’re used to it. If you lie down, your weight will be more evenly distributed and you’ll adjust with greater ease.”

  The thought of pressing the entire length of my body onto this instrument of torture did not appeal to me in the least, but Roxelana’s suggestion made a certain amount of academic sense, so, with more than a dash of trepidation, I lowered myself.

  She was correct; within minutes, the unbearable temperature had become a pleasant friend, and the marble cradled my limbs, lulling me into a trancelike state from which I had no desire to wake.

  “I knew you would like it,” she said.

  I struggled to raise my head to look at her as I replied, “It’s like nothing I’ve ever known.”

  “And you’ve relaxed enough that you’ve forgot you’re naked.”

  At once I shot up, covering myself, and then laughed before dropping back onto the bench. “I suppose it makes no difference.”

  “Have the others poisoned you against me?”

  “Far from it.”

  “They don’t like me because of my religion.”

  “Are they aware of your beliefs?” I asked.

  “No, but they can see I’m not a devout Muslim. It keeps me separate from the rest.”

  “Are they all faithful?”

  “To a degree. Faithful enough to make me fear should I be caught with my rosary,” she said. “I do hope you have the sense not to believe the things people here tell you.”

  “Including the things you tell me?”

  “You can believe some of them. Dare I hope you’ve invented a plan to secure my freedom?”

  “I don’t know that it’s even possible for me to do such a thing. I’ve discussed your situation with the sultan. He resisted, but I shall do all I can to convince him to release you,” I said. “I am, in theory, opposed to arranged marriages, but it seems the only way to gain your release.”

  “I will not marry a man outside my faith,” she said.

  “You’ve no idea how I sympathize, and I wish there were another way. Marriage would at least serve to release you from this prison.”

  “Into another.” Tears flashed in her liquid black eyes. “I thought I might find an ally in you—a woman who understood the need to fight for a life of her own, someone who was not bound by a prison of unfair and unjust rules. I see I was wrong.”

  The reappearance of Melek put an end to the conversation, but while I sat in front of her as she shampooed me, I couldn’t stop the sting of Roxelana’s words. She knew not how close they cut me. I’d risked much to pursue my own interests and wondered if I could embody the goals to which I aspired if I did nothing to free her from her cage. I felt sharp tears in my own eyes as Melek rinsed my hair and then left me, thoroughly clean, to relax on the warm marble until I was ready to dress. As the heat seduced me, wild scenarios for freeing Roxelana marched through my head, reminding me of the dangers of reading too much sensational fiction. I was beginning to approach a perilous place and already contemplating ways to avoid the British government being implicated should she escape. Uneasy, I was more than eager to seek out my clothes but thought I should lie down for another moment, long enough only to not appear rude. The inanity of this—relaxing
by rule—made me smile, and the girl next to me rolled onto her stomach and propped her chin on a hand.

  “It is much easier to talk in here, don’t you think?”

  “Is it?”

  “No one’s listening,” she said. “Do you know yet about Ceyden and Jemal?”

  “I’ve heard stories. What can you tell me?”

  “There’s more to it than a throwaway flirtation—” She stopped speaking, and her eyes left mine. I followed her gaze, turning my head to look behind me, where I saw Perestu, standing above us, fully clothed, not a drop of sweat on her face despite the heat.

  “Have you enjoyed the hamam, Lady Emily?”

  “More than I expected,” I said, feeling once again wholly self-conscious and covering myself with my arms.

  “Go dress. When you are ready, you will be brought to me.”

  As she left, I turned back to my neighbor, still sprawled on the warm marble. “There’s not much to tell,” she said, coming close to whisper to me. “It’s just that sometimes there are ways to get to the sultan without earning Perestu’s approval.”

  When I was dressed—expertly put back together by one of the harem maids—Perestu took me to Ceyden’s room, a chamber with stone walls and almost no decoration that brought to mind a monk’s cell. Her small bed was covered with heaping mounds of clothing—bright silks, embroidered fabrics, everything cut in current Western fashion. An armoire stood in the corner, doors open, nothing hanging inside, another pile of crumpled dresses lying on its floor.

  I crossed to the only other piece of furniture in the room, a desk. On top of it were two books—a collection of Persian poetry translated into English and a copy of the Koran. The margins in the volume of poetry were full of scrawled notes, written in Greek. The Koran, though its spine was broken and the pages dog-eared, contained no annotations.

  I pulled open each drawer in the desk. All were empty save one that contained a sewing kit wrapped in a beautifully embroidered cloth. “Who has had access to this room since the murder?” I asked.

  “Anyone who wants to come in. You can see that her clothes have been pillaged. For all her faults, Ceyden did have a flair for fashion. If, that is, you like Western styles.”

  I shuddered at the thought of people digging through the dead girl’s gowns, looking for something to wear. “You prefer another sort of fashion,” I said. I’d never seen Perestu in anything other than traditional dresses and wide Turkish trousers. It set her apart from the other women and complemented her elegant bearing and petite figure.

  “Yes, I do.”

  I began picking up gowns from the bed, shaking out each one before draping it over the desk. Aside from the occasional ripped hem, I noticed nothing out of the ordinary and moved to the armoire, where, beneath scarves and shawls and more dresses, I found something that could have been out of Perestu’s wardrobe—a stunning Turkish-style gown fashioned from a rich blue-and-silver brocade. More fascinating than the beauty of the dress, however, was the fact that it was far too heavy for its yardage, its skirt bulky where it should have been smooth. The beginnings of excitement stirring in me, I spread out the garment on the floor and ran my hand over the cloth.

  “There’s something not right here,” I said, flipping the dress inside out to reveal a cotton lining with neat seams stitched in it to form small, quilted squares of varying sizes. Anticipating me as she watched, Perestu took the sewing kit from the desk and handed me a slim, golden scissors. I cut the stitches and realized that it wasn’t quilted—the squares were separate pieces of material. Once I’d removed two sides, I reached into what turned out to be a pocket and pulled out an emerald.

  With a gasp, Perestu abandoned her regal bearing and dropped to her knees next to me. I opened another square and found three gold bracelets encrusted with rubies, and then another to reveal a pair of heavy diamond earrings.

  “Are these her personal jewels?” I asked.

  “No. She did not have the status to own such things.”

  I kept at my work, and in short order we had before us a glittering pile of gemstones and a slim gold dagger. I reached behind the last square and touched a stunning sapphire ring set in a diamond-encrusted bezel. I held it up to Perestu, who took it from my hand.

  “This is mine,” she said. “And I believe we’ve found quite enough, Lady Emily. I see Ceyden for who she was. My instincts about her were perfectly accurate, and we don’t need to know anything else. I can no longer doubt that the guard was the one who killed her, most likely in an attempt to stop her from stealing anything else.”

  “That may not be the case, Your Highness,” I said. “We should—”

  “It’s quite enough. The sultan will thank you for your services.”

  8

  Standing in front of Aya Sofya, the former Byzantine church—now a mosque—I found it difficult to watch for my husband without being blinded by the sun. I adjusted my parasol, murmuring to myself the words of approval my mother would have spoken were she with me, and looked across the wide street, through a park filled with palm trees and green grass, in the direction of the Blue Mosque. Vendors pushed carts up and down the paths, selling cherry juice and sweets, calling with the hope of enticing passersby to sample their wares. It struck me to see the number of women on the street. Veils covered their faces, and the mystery drew me to them, the sparkle of kohl-rimmed dark eyes having a far greater effect than society women’s diamonds and low-cut gowns. Sporadically, I would catch a glimpse of a hennaed hand peeking out from wide, long sleeves, and the sound of their frequent laughter seemed at odds with their restrictive clothing.

  I had not expected to see women moving about the city with such freedom but had found almost as soon as we’d arrived that this was just another Western misconception. And as I watched them walk, crossing the street to greet friends or investigate the goods for sale piled on a cart, I contemplated the delicious possibility of going about without anyone recognizing who you were.

  “Mrs. Hargreaves?” Mr. Sutcliffe bowed in front of me. “How delightful to see you.”

  “And you as well,” I said, smiling. “You look full of purpose today.” His eyes were focused and clear, his head high.

  “That I am, although it’s a difficult one.” He shifted a bundle of packages in his arms. “I’m bringing clothes to a family in dire need. Their son, only eight years old, died from a fever last night. They’re terrified it’s contagious and are burning everything they own. I can give them new things, but such a deed pales when compared with their loss.”

  “How terrible. Is there anything I can do?”

  “I should never turn down a donation, but would take nothing else. You do not need to put yourself in circumstances that might cause you harm. I can’t have you falling ill—your husband would never forgive me. I must beg your leave, but hope to see you soon.”

  “Of course,” I said. “And you may depend upon Mr. Hargreaves sending you a check.”

  “I am indebted to you both.” With a nod, he stepped away. A gust of wind tugged at my parasol, spring reminding summer it was not yet ready to relinquish its crown, and I held the handle more tightly, squinting in the face of the bright sun.

  “That’s quite a scowl,” Colin said, swooping in to kiss me. “Something wrong?”

  “No, just the sun.” I looped my arm through his and recounted my conversation with Mr. Sutcliffe.

  “He’s a dedicated man. Many in his position would be consumed with anger instead of compassion.”

  “I admire his ability to turn tragedy into an opportunity to lessen the pain of others,” I said, adjusting my scarf to cover my head suitably for a mosque as we approached Aya Sofya. We walked a few paces before pausing to remove our shoes—a requirement before entering a Muslim holy building.

  “Tell me about your morning,” Colin said.

  “I went to the hamam and then searched Ceyden’s room. You won’t believe what—”

  “You went to the hamam? The baths? In the
harem?”

  “Yes, it was lovely.” I adored the look in his eyes but was not going to be distracted. I tugged on his arm, pulling him inside, across a wide corridor, and into the domed center. The floors, built from marble in the Byzantine days, were now covered with thick carpets that muffled the sound of murmured prayers whispered by the faithful, their heads pressed to the ground. The old Christian mosaics had been hidden by painted plaster, but the space was beautiful, caught between two religions, a testament to the battles fought between them. Little light made its way through the windows, and the candles of the low-hanging chandeliers served only to cast flickering shadows, eerie in their elegance. “Ceyden was hiding a collection of—”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “The baths?”

  I could not help but grin. “This is precisely why I didn’t tell you what I was doing at Y?ld?z before I left this morning. We’ll discuss everything later. At the moment, we can’t be distracted.”

  “Yes, we can. In fact, I’m fairly certain I’m already hopelessly distracted.”

  Now it was his turn to lead me, up a steep cobbled path that stood in lieu of a stairway, its stones so uneven and slick that I clung to him to keep from slipping. The dark passage went to an upper gallery, turn after turn at hard right angles leading to the top, but Colin stopped before we reached it, pushed me against the wall, and gave me a kiss that tempted me beyond all reason. As soon as I began to pull away, he lifted his hand to the back of my neck and began tracing circles with a single finger, sending the most delicious darts down my spine.

  “You’re terrible,” I said. “You can’t kiss me here.”

  “This is supposed to be our honeymoon,” he said, kissing me again. “I’ll kiss you wherever I desire. Now tell me about the baths.”

  “Not a chance.” With no inconsiderable effort, I stepped aside and smoothed my skirts. “I don’t think I could have married you if you weren’t so wholly distracting. But I shall resist you right now.”

  “Dreadful girl.”

  “It will be all the better later.” Our eyes locked on each other. “Isn’t that what you always say?”