by Brandy Purdy
I was quite alone and had taken my veil off; I had no reason to think that anyone who shouldn’t would see my face. I instinctively reached for the veil, but Sebastiani stopped me. There was a look in his eyes that should have made me run, but it didn’t.
What is hidden behind the veil fascinates every male and Sebastiani was no exception. He liked what he saw and he wanted to see the rest of me. It started with a caress of my face, followed by his fingers in my hair, a kiss, light at first, but then more urgent, mouths opening, devouring, tongues mingling and probing, as his hands found my breasts. We lay back on the striped sofa, but that was neither comfortable nor practical, and we ended up naked on the rose-covered carpet.
It felt good to know a man’s body again, one I desired and had chosen of my own free will. The right to choose, to take and give freely, was almost as pleasurable as the act itself.
I lay back afterward very aware that if I had still belonged to a sultan what I had just done was enough to send me sinking in a weighted sack into the Bosphorus. But I didn’t belong to a sultan, though Selim wanted me to. I belonged to no one. I occupied a unique position in the harem no other woman had ever attained. I had been spared the living tomb of the Palace of Tears, I remained at Topkapi Palace for my son, but I was no longer sure what rights I had and didn’t have. What if I wanted to leave or marry? Was that allowed? Could I? Was what I had just done still a crime punishable by death? I had betrayed no one. Abdul Hamid was dead and I was not an odalisque in Selim’s harem. I couldn’t be; women were not passed down like possessions. Where did I stand exactly?
Sebastiani propped himself up on one elbow and stared down at me.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“Everything and nothing,” I sighed. “It is better not to ask.”
“Who are you?” He leaned over me. “I am very curious to know—How did you come to be here? What is your name? Your real name?”
I shook my head and rose and began to put on my clothes.
“Why won’t you tell me?” he persisted, sitting up naked, cross-legged on the carpet.
“It’s a name I will never answer to again,” I said, “so it is best forgotten.”
I had no idea if my parents still lived or what had become of my sister, Marthe. If anyone knew my real name, they might make inquiries, inquiries that might cause pain. I preferred to keep my silence, and my secrets.
“Why must you be so maddeningly mysterious?” he sighed. “I would just like to have a name to call you that is really your own.”
“The one I have is mine, someone I loved very much gave it to me, and I would have no other even if I could. You had better get dressed; we shouldn’t linger here like this,” I said, and handed him his clothes. A snuffbox fell from his coat pocket and I picked it up. There was a portrait of a beautiful dark-haired woman’s face on the lid ringed in diamonds. I recognized her instantly.
“Who is she?” I asked. I was not about to lay my cards on the table and reveal what I already knew.
“You won’t tell me your name, but you ask me hers?” Sebastiani said as he stepped into his breeches.
I shrugged my shoulders and continued dressing in silence.
“She must be someone very special for you to carry her likeness in your pocket,” I observed. “You seem at first glance very devoted to your wife, yet after what we have just done—” I shrugged—“I would not be at all surprised if you had another mistress, or even several.”
“Oh, not her! Never her!” Sebastiani laughed. “She is Bonaparte’s wife; he calls her Josephine, but her name is really Rose. She was the wife of Alexandre de Beauharnais, but they separated. He went to the guillotine and she almost did too.”
I knew it! It was Rose! She had survived the Revolution; she was alive and married to the man who now controlled the destiny of France.
“If she is General Bonaparte’s wife, why do you carry her picture then?” I asked.
“Many of the men do. The General considers her his good-luck charm, he is madly in love with her and always carries her likeness with him into battle, so we do the same, just in case there is some truth in it,” Sebastiani explained.
“Ah”—I nodded—“well, we all have our superstitions.” I turned around and showed him the serpent swallowing its tail tattooed on the small of my back.
Sebastiani stepped up close behind me, lifted the heavy golden weight of my hair over my shoulders, and nuzzled my neck and ear. “I do love my wife,” he whispered, “I love her very much, but that doesn’t mean I can’t love anyone else. And it’s my business where I choose to put my prick.” He nuzzled and kissed the back of my neck again. “Tell me your name. . . .”
To stop his questions, I turned around and stopped them myself with my own mouth. But every time we met he asked me the same question—What is your name? It rapidly evolved into a battle of wills.
I was right, he was very charming, attractive, and intelligent, soulful, sensual, a very skillful lover, and a brilliant tactician, but he was also not to be trusted. We met several times more in the French sitting room. I let him make love to me because I enjoyed it, but I never told him the name I was born to. That was my secret to keep; I would never share it.
CHAPTER 40
Fanny Sebastiani died giving birth to a little girl. When he held his newborn daughter in his arms for the first time, over the bloodstained sheets covering his wife’s cool and still, lifeless form, the wild dogs named Guilt and Grief tore General Horace Francois Bastien Sebastiani apart. Nothing would satisfy him but to retreat at once, back to France, with the baby girl who looked so much like his dead wife that he had to name her Fanny. No other name would do.
We never met again.
He informed Selim of his intentions via letter. After he finished reading, Selim looked up at me and asked, “Are you going with him?”
I knew in that moment that Selim knew—Sebastiani had been my lover.
“No,” I answered, and put my arm around Mahmoud’s shoulder, “my place is here, with Mahmoud, and you.”
Selim gave me a timid smile across the top of the letter. “I am glad you are staying.”
“So am I,” I said. I never told him that Sebastiani had never asked me to go. If he had, my answer would have been no.
* * *
Senieperver and the Janissaries saw the moment of weakness they had been seeking and seized it. Selim had come to depend on the military genius and friendship of Sebastiani, the Savior of Constantinople. He felt lost and powerless without Sebastiani to advise him. Months and many letters passed between them, but Sebastiani could not be persuaded to come back, and eventually he stopped answering Selim’s letters. He blamed himself for bringing Fanny to Constantinople; he convinced himself that if she had remained in France she would never have died. To him, Turkey would forever remain a cursed place, one where he wished he had never set foot. There was nothing Selim could do to sway him. Nor would Napoleon send another man. This only confirmed my suspicions that he had his eye on Turkey. The weaker and more desperate and vulnerable we were, the easier we would be to conquer. But other things were more important to him at the moment. Bonaparte saw Turkey as a woman he could take any time he wanted. There was no hurry: she would keep until he had time for her.
* * *
Mustafa’s faction chose their moment well. They struck in the dead of night without warning.
Startled awake at sword point, sitting up in his bed, still befuddled by sleep, Selim readily surrendered the throne to Mustafa.
He told me so himself when the three of us—Selim, Mahmoud, and me—were herded into the Golden Cage, the Kefess, as prisoners, to await death. It might be minutes, it might be hours, days, months, or even weeks, but it was coming, and on swift wings. At sixteen, my son was a man now, the one every downtrodden soul in Turkey would look to when Mustafa’s reign of tyranny began. The sands in the hourglass were already running out for him.
I sat in silence, my arm around Mahmoud
’s shoulder, both of us staring at the carpet. None of us dared say a word; I think we were all afraid of the hurt they would do.
When he could stand the silence no longer, Selim confronted me. “Look at me,” he said. His hand reached out to roughly wrench up my chin, to make me meet his eyes. “You think I did wrong, that I should not have abdicated.”
I said nothing. His fingertips bit hard into the flesh of my jaw.
“Answer me! Tell me the truth!” he demanded angrily. I had never seen him like this before.
“Do you really want me to tell you the truth?” I asked tiredly.
We were interrupted by servants who brought us food and clothes. Apparently we would be here in the Cage, waiting for death, long enough to require nourishment and a change of clothes.
Selim snatched up a gilded pitcher and poured sherbet into a cup. He drank it down greedily.
“Selim! No!”
“You shouldn’t do that!”
“It might be poisoned!”
Mahmoud and I protested, our voices mingling in fear and concern for Selim.
“Good! I hope I have drunk death!” Selim said. Suddenly he rounded on me and flung the half-empty gilt cup of sherbet at the wall. “You didn’t answer my question!”
I was angry now. Very angry. I stood up and squared my shoulders and stared Selim right in the face.
“All right, I will answer you; I will tell you the exact same words I spoke to Abdul Hamid the first night I went to him: I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees! And there you have my answer!” I sat down again and folded my arms across my breasts.
With my words, all the life, all the spirit, seemed to go out of Selim. He sank down wearily onto the divan opposite us.
“You’re right,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done it.”
Time passed. The sun rose and then set again. Two more prisoners were brought to join us—the Kizlar Aga, Lâle, and my giantess, Kuvetti. The sun rose and set again and then again before the night when there were footsteps and the rattle of sabers outside the golden door of the Kefess as we sat huddled around a brazier of coals, trying desperately to get warm. It was raining outside and the night was very cold.
We stood as one, looking anxiously toward the door. We all knew Death was coming.
Selim caught me in his arms and kissed me hard.
“Love requires sacrifice, always remember that, and how much I love you,” he said just before he moved toward the door.
Mahmoud and Lâle tried to stop him, but he shook off their arms.
“Be the sultan I tried, and failed, to be, only better,” he said as he swiftly embraced his cousin.
When the Janissaries threw open the door Selim practically flung himself upon their swords. A punch to his face shattered his spectacles and I saw red blossoms of blood where his eyes had been as he staggered blindly toward them once again, bleeding from a hundred wounds, arms out as though he meant to embrace Death.
Sabers at the ready, they were already turning toward Mahmoud. I instinctively stepped in front of my son, though he tried to move around me, to stand between me and death. Abdul Hamid’s dagger was at my waist, as always, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough.
It was then that Kuvetti acted; with a mighty roar of pain as it seared away the skin from her palms, she snatched up the brazier and flung the red-hot coals inside right into the Janissaries’ faces.
I didn’t wait to be told. I grabbed Mahmoud’s hand and began to run. My loyal Kuvetti had bought us time, but minutes only.
We flew through the Djinn’s Gate into the harem proper, the part of the palace I knew best. They weren’t far behind us. I had to think fast. The Sultana Valide’s chambers were empty; they would not have had time to make them ready for Senieperver yet.
“This way!” I said and hurried Mahmoud into the Valide’s vast private bath.
“They will be looking everywhere for us down here; we have to go up!” I said, and pushed him toward the great empty fireplace and up the iron ladder the chimney sweeps used.
Up and up we climbed onto the rain-slick blue-gray tiles of the palace roof. It was almost like walking on ice. I slipped as the roof pitched down and Mahmoud grabbed hold of me and pulled me back up. We sat for a moment and clung to each other in the pouring rain and, then, slowly but surely, we began making our way carefully across the vast slippery rooftops of Topkapi Palace, doing the best we could to stay out of sight and away from windows, taking shelter and rest when we could behind cupolas, domes, and chimneys. For my plan to work, we must wait until daylight. Mustafa needed to sleep. Now he would still be alert, receiving reports, while the Janissaries searched the palace for us, but eventually he would sleep. He might even take a gilded pill of opium as I had heard he often did. That was what I was waiting for—for morning and that first waking befuddlement.
There were times, for which we were most thankful, when the roof we must traverse lay flat, but others when it slanted sharply and all we could do was hold on to each other tight and pray that God would make us, when we needed it, as sure-footed as mountain goats and save us from falling. The moon was both our friend and foe that night; while it lit our way, it could also reveal us.
The hours passed and the black sky grew gradually lighter, shifting to a deep charcoal gray and then to the color of a silver pearl, but still the rain didn’t stop. When the sky was the pale, pure yellow of fresh butter the rain at last began to subside. Our fingers were blue with cold and we could scarcely feel them or our feet. Such coldness brings clumsiness. I began to rub my hands with all my might, to make the blood move and my fingers strong, steady, and sure enough to do what they must do. I clenched my hands into fists and then uncurled then and continued to rub them. Everything now depended on my two hands.
We were above the Sultan’s rooms now. I moved carefully along, seeking a window where I could see Mustafa, in his bed, sleeping soundly.
I took a deep breath and braced myself.
“Stay here,” I said to Mahmoud. “Do not come down until I tell you to.”
I began to hammer on the glass, using the metal bands of my rings to produce an annoying tapping when my fist alone failed to rouse Mustafa. At last he sat up and rubbed his eyes and turned, with a frown of annoyance in my direction.
Before he could think to alert the guards, I clasped my hands together in a prayerful attitude. “Please!” I said. “Please!”
Mustafa sat up and thrust his feet into fur-lined golden slippers and threw on a robe as he stumbled and fumbled toward the window. He yawned as he opened the latch.
Soaked to the skin, my clothes and hair weighed down by rainwater, I presented a most pitiful sight as I clambered in. I quickly fell to my knees and kissed the hem of Mustafa’s robe.
“We fled onto the rooftops last night because we were frightened,” I said. “We saw Selim die before our eyes, so horribly, his chest bleeding from a hundred wounds, his eyes put out when the glass of his spectacles shattered.” As I spoke, tears ran from my eyes. “It is a mother’s first instinct to protect her son, as you well know; your own has been especially vigilant. You are the Sultan, Mustafa IV, long may you reign, and we surrender ourselves to you now and pray you will deal mercifully with us. If we must die, let it be swiftly with as little pain as possible. I know, were your positions reversed, my son would show you, his brother, the same mercy.”
“Where is he?” Mustafa asked, stifling another yawn.
“He is just outside the window there. His ankle, I fear, is broken. Mahmoud!” I called. “Come, but be careful of your ankle! Would you help him, please?” I turned pleading eyes upon Mustafa.
He yawned again and stepped past me and the brothers each extended a hand to the other. I didn’t hesitate. I took Abdul Hamid’s dagger from my gown and plunged it over Mustafa’s shoulder while his back was turned, straight into his heart.
I would stain my soul with blood and endure eternal damnation to save my son.
“Love requires s
acrifice,” I said, echoing Selim. No truer words had ever been spoken.
Mustafa barely had time to scream. Guards poured in as Mustafa’s dying blood bathed my feet and Mahmoud leapt into the room and wrapped his arms protectively about me.
The guards stopped and stared. Mustafa lay dead at my feet. The floor was slick with blood. I still held his father’s dagger clutched tight in my trembling hand.
“You are the Sultan,” I said to Mahmoud, and started to kneel.
Mahmoud’s hands stayed me and instead he knelt and raised my dripping wet hem to his lips and kissed it. “I would be nothing without you, Sultana Valide Nakshidil.”
EPILOGUE
Sitting in the Tuileries eating decadent desserts with his plump Austrian wife and watching their son play with his gilded scepter-shaped rattles, Bonaparte grew fat and complaisant. His unwieldy empire proved an impractical dream, impossible to efficiently govern, and the French people resented having to starve and struggle to pay taxes to support the lavish lifestyle of their self-proclaimed Emperor and his court. The price of bread kept soaring and the draft gobbled up so many able-bodied men from sixteen to sixty that it was not uncommon to find villages inhabited only by women.
When Tsar Alexander violated the terms of their peace treaty and began trading openly with England, Bonaparte set off with six hundred thousand men, boasting that he would conquer Russia in twenty days.
What Napoleon didn’t know was that Sultan Mahmoud, curiously stricken deaf and mute when called upon to repay past favors and aid the French, who had helped modernize Turkey’s army during his cousin Selim’s reign, had signed a secret treaty of peace, ending the centuries-old enmity between Turkey and Russia. Mahmoud was known to be a man of his word. Thus freed from worry about the Turks, the Tsar need no longer defend his borders against them; he could withdraw the troops stationed there to deal exclusively with Napoleon.
There was something else Napoleon didn’t know. Mahmoud was not only a man of his word but also a man of honor with a keen sense of justice, loyalty, and family. Josephine, though he had never met her, was, to Mahmoud’s mind, family. He had grown up hearing stories about the island wild child Rose who had been reborn, reinvented, as Napoleon’s incomparable Josephine, his lucky charm, Our Lady of Victories. Mahmoud’s mother, Nakshidil, the erstwhile Aimee Dubucq de Rivery, had loved her and always remembered her fondly; that was enough for Mahmoud. When the perfidious Napoleon set Josephine aside so callously to take a fertile Austrian broodmare for a wife, Mahmoud, recalling the tales of knights and chivalry his mother used to tell him, decided that he would be Josephine’s champion. He would bide his time, doing nothing overt, as in war one never warns one’s enemy; when the time was right to strike Mahmoud would know it.
