by Zia Wesley
As the sun’s rays shone through the glass dome of the ceiling and struck the diamonds, a riot of rainbows danced around the walls, floor and ceiling of the room. For a long moment, Aimée was so completely entranced by the opulence and beauty that she forgot her purpose for being there.
When the glorious vision had settled comfortably on a royal divan, the Vekil Usta nodded the signal for Aimée to begin, snapping her out of her trance.
Although the Circassian Kadine did not show more than a polite outward reaction to Aimée’s musical performance, she was moved by the girl’s depth of feeling and unusual voice. Each song fed her hope that this young woman would capture the Sultan’s heart and renew some desire for life. Unfortunately, many young women of promise had disappointed her during the last few years so, she reserved her hope until she could be more certain of success.
At the end of the day, the Vekil Usta visited Aimée in her quarters and praised her performance, assuring her that the Circassian Kadine had also approved.
~ ~ ~
The final day’s tests began with dances, and again the Circassian Kadine arrived in extraordinary splendor. Unlike the calm demeanor she had maintained the day before, her response to Aimée’s dancing was animated and spontaneous. As she watched, the heat seemed to rise in her own body, and she signaled a servant to remove her heavy caftan. Her shoulders and head swayed to the music and her eyes never left Aimée. She felt encouraged by Aimée’s grace and sensuality, believing that a woman who could dance thus would make love with a similar passion.
Eagerly awaiting the final test, she instructed one of her eunuchs to bring her opium pipe. After she had taken a long inhalation she wished that she could witness this exotic creature actually being deflowered, and thought she might ask Abdul if she could observe their first night’s tryst. These were the Kadine’s thoughts as the young eunuch entered and positioned himself on the bed, opening his robes to reveal his prosthetic manhood. She took another long inhalation of the opium and wished for the girl’s sake that Abdul were thus endowed.
The curtains parted to reveal Aimée and the performance that followed proved to be even more exciting than the Kadine had hoped. The Kizlar Agasi was correct. Here was the little miracle that might save them... the next favorite and with some luck, the next Valide Sultana.
The performance left the Circassian Kadine in a highly aroused state. She took several minutes to compose herself, touching her jewelry and her hair and smoothing the layers of gold silk that enveloped her body. When her breathing had returned to normal, she rose and approached Aimée, extending a trembling hand for her to kiss.
“You are a pleasure to watch,” she whispered.
Aimée knelt, completely naked, with her head bowed. “Thank you, my lady.”
The Kadine lifted Aimée’s chin, tilting her face up to look at her. “How old are you, child?”
“Nineteen, my lady.”
The Kadine stroked Aimée’s cheek. “That is difficult to believe. You don’t look more than fifteen.”
Aimée grinned broadly, her heart pounding wildly in her chest. “Thank you, my lady.” She likes me, and she is so beautiful. Oh, if only I were as beautiful.
“You will join my retinue and reside close to my own quarters so that you may attend me personally.”
Aimée loved the thought of being close to the Kadine, although she did not grasp the importance of the invitation.
However, the Kizlar Agasi, who stood beside Aimée beaming with pride, comprehended it fully. The invitation was exactly what he had hoped for. This was the highest honor an odalisque might receive, second only to being the Sultan’s favorite. It was an honor that could be neither bought nor traded, as only the Kadine could bestow it. He had hoped the older woman would be charmed, would see the same possibilities in the girl that he saw. Oh, let her be the one, he silently prayed. He clapped his hands together with glee, then extended them to help Aimée rise.
The Circassian Kadine looked directly into Aimée’s eyes, entranced by their beauty. “Sapphires,” she said quietly. “Dress her,” she instructed Zahar, who stood close by holding the clothes that Aimée had discarded.
Zahar quickly draped Aimée in the sheer dresses and fastened the fur-trimmed cape around her shoulders.
The Kadine graciously extended her hand to Aimée. While Aimée grinned widely, and the Kizlar Agasi followed a few steps behind, they walked together down the long corridor out of the Cariye Dairisi, through the door that led to the harem.
Aimée had spent months imagining the magnificence that waited on other side of the door, but at first glance, it appeared to be just an ordinary, long corridor. Concealing her disappointment, she walked with the Kadine as they approached several kitchens, one after another. Passing each bustling room, the Kadine leaned confidentially towards Aimée to explain its purpose. Each time she did so, Aimée inhaled the heady fragrance of her perfume, and smiled.
The Kadine said, “This kitchen is used solely to prepare food for the Sultan.”
There were too many cooks for Aimée to count without stopping her progress. They came to a second kitchen.
“This one serves my needs as well as those of Nuket Seza, the Baskadine [mother of the first-born son], and her son.” She disliked the boy so intensely that she could not bring herself to say his name.
Further along the corridor she explained, “This is where meals for the Kizlar Agasi and other black eunuchs are prepared.”
Aimée was amazed to learn that these people all had their own kitchens.
The Circassian Kadine stopped at the entrance to the fifth kitchen. “This is where meals for the Grand Master of the Seraglio are prepared, and right next to it,” she continued, “is the small kitchen for the chief treasurer and his officials.”
A little further down the long corridor she paused at the door to another small kitchen. “This one is for the personal use of the Chief Cup Bearer and this,” she said, indicating the wide doorway of a huge room, “is the general kitchen where the rest of the meals are prepared.”
To Aimée, it seemed like hundreds of people were rushing about preparing foods of every kind. She did not yet know that the kitchens employed over three thousand people and prepared more than six thousand meals every day.
The Circassian Kadine explained, “All of the storerooms, cold rooms and serbet kitchens are below, where it is cooler.”
“Serbets are my very favorite things,” Aimée said, smiling.
“Yes, we all love serbets, especially the Sultan. One day I will teach you how to prepare some special serbets... the Sultan’s favorites.”
She prepares food? Why would she when there are so many cooks?
The corridor turned sharply to the left, where two other corridors leading off in different directions joined it.
“The rooms for cleaning clothes are there,” the Kadine said, indicating the corridor on her left, “and the dressmakers’ shops, and shoemakers. The herbalists, chemists, tobacconists and nurseries are that way,” she said, indicating the right hallway. “We shall proceed forward towards the hamam.”
It seemed like a great maze of endless winding hallways that all looked the same to Aimée, who wondered how she would ever learn her way around.
“You will have little need to visit most of these areas again,” the Circassian Kadine said, as if reading her mind. “Except for the baths, of course.”
The eunuchs walking before them opened a large wooden door leading to the changing room.
It was ten times larger than the changing room in the Cariye Dairisi, and the clothing that had been discarded was splendid. They passed through and entered the enormous tepidarium where a dozen naked women lay on divans, sipping coffee and eating sweets.
As soon as the women saw the Circassian Kadine, they rushed to her, curtseying and smiling, kissing her hand and offering compliments and refreshments. Barely acknowledging them, she continued speaking to Aimée and walking towards the double doors leading to
the baths.
The eunuchs pulled open the doors to reveal a warren of several huge rooms with high-domed ceilings made entirely of white marble. The arched doorways of each room opened onto the main bath area, with a pool fed by a splashing, tiered fountain in its center. Water flowed everywhere from waterfalls, marble fountains and gold sinks with gold faucets in shapes of animal heads from whose open mouths it streamed. Steam rose from the pool, and the unmistakable scents of jasmine, musk and ambergris permeated the hot, humid air. The heady fragrance made Aimée want to strip naked and submerge herself in the pool. Hundreds of women were being scrubbed, polished, shampooed, manicured, massaged, oiled and hennaed by hundreds of slaves.
Aimée had never seen anything like it. It looked like a bustling subterranean city, populated solely by naked women.
As women noticed the royal presence in their midst, they stopped whatever they were doing, hoping the Kadine might notice them. One woman even prostrated herself in a clumsy attempt to kiss her moving feet.
With nothing more than a nod of her regal head to acknowledge any of the women who greeted her, the Kadine said to Aimée, “My private bath is adjacent to my apartments, and I rarely enter here. You are welcome to use that as well, should you desire more privacy. I always find these baths so very busy,” she said with undisguised disdain.
Aimée’s presence also caused a flurry of whispers, speculating on who she might be. “Look at her hair.” one pointed out. “She is a graduate or she would not be permitted here. But why would the Circassian Kadine accompany her when she rarely even speaks to us?”
Speculations flew through the air. By the time the party had departed, a dozen explanations had been born: the young woman was a foreign princess whose father had given her as a gift to the Sultan, she was a distant cousin (of royal blood) of the Circassian Kadine, she was a queen who had deserted her husband and country, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Curiously, almost all of the rumors included something about royalty. None came close to the truth of the little French convent girl abducted by pirates, possibly because the elegant young woman bore no resemblance to that little girl.
Before Aimée had completed her traverse of the hamam, two women hurriedly left to report to Nuket Seza. While the Baskadine rarely used the communal harem bath herself, having one of her own, her spies kept her informed of any important news or events that transpired there. Although she did not yet know who the new odalisque might be, she knew of her presence before the hamam door had closed behind Aimée’s back. The description of her exotic beauty sent Nuket Seza into a fury. Within minutes, she assembled a dozen women, and instructed them to bring her details, “or else.”
The Kadine’s party exited the hamam and walked down another corridor that ended at an ornate, copper-clad door. When the eunuchs opened it, Aimée thought that they were about to step outside because the ceiling suddenly climbed to four stories high. Before her was a large, square courtyard surrounded by a three-story building. Wide verandas ran along the front, with hundreds of doors opening onto them. Many of the doors stood open, allowing Aimée a glimpse of luxuriously decorated bedrooms.
“The sleeping quarters,” the Circassian Kadine explained as they crossed the courtyard.
Now Aimée understood that they were walking through the living quarters of the harem, and a little chill passed up her spine. This is where I shall live. It bore no resemblance to the harem she had imagined, the long, narrow hallway patrolled by armed guards.
They crossed the courtyard, and entered another copper-clad door that lead to yet another corridor.
The Kadine indicated an imposing looking iron door on her right and said, “The eunuchs’ quarters. This door is locked each night and opened each morning by the Kizlar Agasi.”
Aimée had heard gossip of women carrying on affairs with eunuchs. She had questioned the validity, but now wondered why else the harem guards might need a locked door.
As they continued forward, soft daylight filtered into the corridor through windows that opened to the outside, which were covered with intricately carved wooden lattice, gilded with gold. The lattice allowed light to filter in while preventing passersby any view of the interior.
The Kadine explained that the only men allowed here, other than eunuchs, were the Tressed Halberdiers, who delivered firewood to the harem. They wore two locks of false hair, extending from both sides of their turbans to their shoulders, like curtains, to prevent sideways glances that might reveal an odalisque to their eyes.
“Of course,” she added, “any woman encountering one of these men, will make herself quite visible. The false hair does not impede a straightforward glance, and odalisques are starved for attention. Imagine spending all of your time in preparation for the act of love and rarely even seeing a man.”
A pang of fear made a small knot in Aimée’s stomach. She had been so focused upon her goal that she had never considered failure a possibility. Now the Kadine was telling her how common failure was... hundreds of women never even seeing a man. What if the Sultan does not favor me? She looked out through the pierced lattice. This paradise would indeed become my prison.
The exterior courtyards on either side of the hundred-yard passage were carpeted with thick, green grass and landscaped with exotic foliage, fountains and streams. As they walked, the soothing sounds of splashing water accompanied them. The corridor ended at an ornate bronze double door, guarded by two black eunuchs.
As the party approached, the guards pulled the doors open to reveal a large, round room with cushioned banquettes along its walls and small ornate tables scattered throughout. Sunlight poured through a glass dome in the ceiling, illuminating the smooth white plaster walls. The room was warm and bright, filled with the scent of frankincense. Colorful arrangements of fragrant pink and yellow roses overflowed from large cloisonné vases on elaborate gold stands. Thick Persian carpets cushioned their steps as they crossed the room and passed through an archway into another larger room. These were the private apartments of the Circassian Kadine.
The Kadine dismissed the eunuchs and turned to the Kizlar Agasi. “Shall we dine together this evening?”
“Certainly,” he replied. Turning to Aimée he said, “I will see you very soon.”
“Please,” the Circassian Kadine said, indicating an ornate divan to Aimée. “Before you are shown to your room there is something we must discuss.”
The Kadine settled herself onto another divan and clapped her hands. Three slaves appeared immediately, each carrying a silver tray. The first tray held two tiny, gold porcelain coffee cups that the girl carefully set down on the table between the divans. A second slave, whose tray held an ornate jezve (coffee pot) inlaid with silver and gold, poured thick dark coffee into their cups. When she was finished, the third servant placed a yellow silk napkin next to each cup and then departed.
Aimée’s eyes darted around the room in an attempt to take in the opulent furnishings—richly woven tapestries, gilded furniture, priceless Venetian glass vases and jewel-encrusted boxes. The beautiful face of the Circassian Kadine was more exquisite than anything else in the room.
The Kadine sipped her coffee, then carefully replaced the delicate cup onto its saucer, and smiled. “You are surely a gift from whichever God one may choose to believe in.”
Stunned by the flattering remark, Aimée blushed, and then smiled. “Thank you, my lady.”
“You have talents beyond most women in this harem, my dear, and I want you to know that I am going to bring you to the Sultan as quickly as possible. How much has the Kizlar Agasi told you?”
“Told me about what, exactly, my lady?”
“About the Sultan.”
“Oh, I have learned much about our sovereign. I know of his kind nature and his love of wild animals, his enjoyment of music and dance and his fondness for the sensual pleasures of...”
The Circassian Kadine stopped her with a wave of her hand. “Do you know that the Sultan is deeply melancholy and has lost interest
in all of these things?”
Genuinely surprised, Aimée replied, “No, my lady, I did not know this.” Teachings on the Sultan had not included weakness or failings of any kind.
“He has no favorites, and only one son,” she added. “It is very important that he take an active interest in things again. There are political reasons of which I will not yet speak. However, we believe that you may be able to rekindle his interest in private pleasures and through this perhaps renew his interest in other things as well. Do I make myself clear?”
Aimée wondered who the “we” referred to, and remembered Baba saying that a favorite would have the Sultan’s ear. “Yes, my lady. I believe that I begin to understand.”
The Kadine smiled. “Intelligent as well as beautiful,” she whispered. She finished her coffee then carefully replaced the cup. “Good. Now let us bathe while your room is being prepared. I think I know exactly what you will like. Come,” she said, then clapped her hands for the slaves to attend them.
Aimée did not know whether the latter comment referred to her room or the bath, and did not care. It was obvious the Kadine’s taste greatly exceeded her own. She followed behind watching light reflect off the older woman’s sparkling robe. Was she walking through a dream? It was just as Baba had said: magnificently beautiful rooms, objects, gardens, clothing, women and jewels. The most important woman in the harem was taking her under her wing, and she might play a different part than she had ever imagined. Filled with expectation, Aimée began to visualize her new role. Not only could she be a favorite and mother, she might become a confidant and ally to the Valide Sultana.
