by Zia Wesley
“Over the last few decades the Janissaries have become increasingly more powerful, influencing the decisions of the Divan and going so far as to make war without the consent of the Sultan.”
“What might happen if the Sultan’s own army turned against him?” Aimée asked.
“In the past, they have deposed Sultans whose policies displeased them. Now they number slightly more than forty thousand. When they are angered, they show their displeasure by beating their huge copper cooking pots. They turn them over and empty out the food, to signify that they reject the Sultan’s rations, then beat on them like drums. You can hear them from some parts of the seraglio. They ride into the city at night and slaughter infidels, Christians and Jews mostly, but often anyone who crosses their path. They sever the heads and stack them outside the Gate of Salutation to remind the rest of us of their power.”
Aimée covered her mouth with one hand. The violence was shocking and seemed incongruous in the place that she had come to think of as “paradise.” This might explain why the French called the Turks “barbarians.”
“At the moment, the Janissaries have a list of demands that were brought before the Divan five weeks ago. Due to the Sultan’s lack of interest, he has not attended that assembly in almost two months and the council is unable vote on the demands without the Sultan. If he does not act, the Janissaries will simply do as they please, so you see why it is vital that we find a way to rouse him from his lethargy and take command.”
Aimée nodded, but could not shake the gruesome picture of a pile of severed heads.
“In the past, Janissary revolts have taken the lives of thousands of people as well as Sultans,” she added. “And in answer to your question, there is no government provision for a Sultan who simply loses interest. However, there is a long tradition of Sultan’s being ‘retired’ permanently, either by ambitious members of their own families or members of the government. In this case, there are two factions who would like to do exactly that, one being the Janissaries and the other being Nuket Seza.
“Nuket Seza, the Baskadine?” Aimée asked.
“Yes, unfortunately, the Baskadine. Her son, Mustapha, is only eight years old, but she has already fashioned him into a contemptible little monster. This is another unfortunate harem tradition for women seeking power. She would like nothing better than to rule through him, and should something happen to my son, Selim, little Mustapha would become Sultan. Nuket has managed to eliminate all other potential heirs; ten of the Sultan’s newborn sons and two favorite Kadines.”
Aimée’s eyes widened in disbelief. “How could she?”
“Poison or suffocation. She made several attempts to poison Selim, and almost succeeded once. That is why I employ my own food taster, you know. She has also aligned herself with the Janissaries, who have the power to eliminate both the Sultan and Selim. If a child sultan were on the throne, the Janissaries would have total power to rule, you see. Nuket Seza knows nothing about politics, but a great deal about treachery and self-interest. The Janissaries would snap her like a twig, but she’s too stupid and power hungry to see this, and thinks she can rule them.” She sighed deeply. “Were I more like her I would have had her removed long ago. I certainly should have. But I care more for politics than treachery. Unfortunately, they often go hand in hand.”
“I had no idea,” Aimée murmured, shocked by the violent turbulence that simmered beneath the utopian ambiance of the seraglio.
“Of course not,” the Kadine said sarcastically. “Women of the harem are not concerned with such things. Ha!”
“She murdered ten children and still lives? It does not seem possible.”
“Almost the same number of girls were killed as well, my dear, but probably by their own mother’s hands.”
“But why? I cannot imagine taking the life of an innocent child, any child... and my own? I have never heard of such a terrible thing.”
“Girls have no value here, except to give birth to boys. Infanticide is an unfortunate tradition used to insure the ascendance of one’s own child. Try to imagine how it might feel to be one of hundreds of insignificant bees in a hive suddenly given the chance to become queen. This is what happens when a harem woman gives birth to a son.”
Aimée was amazed she’d not had the slightest inkling of this other world within the seraglio. Apparently, her education up to this point had been carefully designed to paint only a partial picture of luxurious, sensual bliss and days spent enriching oneself in the arts and preparing one’s body for pleasure. The Circassian Kadine exposed a ruthless underside—power-hungry women who stopped at nothing to achieve their own ambitions. If the Sultan chose to favor her, she would need to be a great deal more than a pampered wife and mother, idling away her days in luxury. Her role would be infinitely more complicated than she ever imagined. It might also be a lot more interesting—and a lot more dangerous. What was it the old witch said about my son’s throne and the blood of his predecessor? She was trying to remember the words when the Kizlar Agasi entered.
“Did the gift arrive?” he asked.
“Behold,” the Circassian Kadine said indicating the ornate little box.
The Kizlar Agasi closely examined the contents of the box, then squealed in his high-pitched voice, “I knew it, I knew it!” Then he did something that he had never done. He knelt before Aimée and gathered her into his arms, bestowing kisses all over her head. “My little angel,” he whispered. He took her face in his huge hands and brought his own very close to look into her eyes. “Now our real work begins,” he said, and touched his forehead to hers.
“I have already begun to explain,” the Kadine said.
“Good, good,” he said, rising to his feet. “I will call on the Sultan and discover what I can. Stay here, Nakshidil. I shall return shortly.”
“He is very fond of you,” the Kadine said with a smile, as the Kizlar Agasi left the room.
“He has been extremely kind for one who frightened me so in the beginning.”
“You must understand that we have had many disappointments. Girls arrive for the Sultan almost every week, more than five hundred in ten years, and none has been favored. Without a favorite we have no ally, and what is worse, with a Baskadine like Nuket Seza we have an enemy.”
“My lady, may I ask how you believe I may be of help in influencing His Majesty?”
“The Divan meets on Saturday. Your role is to ask that he allow you to accompany him there.”
“To the Divan?”
“Yes. You must convince him that your greatest desire is to see him in his role as leader of the Empire, wielding power over the council. We hope that he is still vain enough to welcome the chance to exhibit himself so. He will secrete you in the ‘Eye of the Sultan,’ behind a pierced wall where you may see without being seen.”
Aimée remembered Baba telling her about this private place in the Hall of the Divan as a way they might make contact.
The Circassian Kadine continued. “The Kizlar Agasi, who is an important member of the council, will initiate the vote on the matter of the Janissaries petition. It will pass in the presence of the Sultan, which is all that is required.”
“Do you mean that the Sultan does not actually need to vote on the matter?” she asked.
“That is correct. The council has already made their decision. It is only necessary for the Sultan to be present when they declare their decision.”
“The Sultan is merely a figurehead?” she asked in astonishment.
“Not always, but fortunately, in this case, yes.”
“Then who truly rules?”
“That is an excellent question,” the Kadine replied with a cryptic smile, and said no more.
The Kizlar Agasi came loping into the room, breathless from his haste. “Tomorrow night!” he exclaimed. “He wants to see you again tomorrow night. I have not seen him so excited in years. He would see you tonight, but fears that it is too soon to be able to perform properly. He has already begun to pre
pare himself as we speak. Oh, what good fortune. Allah be praised.”
Chapter 29
In preparation for Aimée’s second visit to his bedchamber, Sultan Abdul Hamid did not intend to imbibe a potion containing opium, as he wanted to be wide-awake to enjoy his luscious new odalisque. However, following the advice of his personal Kutuchu Usta, two aphrodisiacs would be added to his favorite ambergris serbet. He remembered the young girl’s golden hair, sapphire eyes, and little pink blossom between her legs. Just thinking of her sparked the fire in his loins, a fire whose coals had been cold as ice for far too long. He felt alive.
He called for his chamberlain, who appeared almost instantly.
“Sire?” he said, bowing.
“Have my stallion saddled. I wish to ride out to the sea.”
“Immediately, Sire, it is done,” he said, running from the chamber. As he fled, he grabbed the arm of one of the eunuchs and shouted excitedly, “Alert the Kizlar Agasi. The Sultan rides to the sea!”
By the time word of the Sultan’s wish had reached the royal stables, the entire palace knew the old monarch had been brought back to life by the new odalisque.
Nuket Seza’s spies brought the news to her in her private bath, where she was being massaged. In response, she shoved her masseuse out of the way and heaved her corpulent body off the slab, then asked, “Old Sultan leaving his bed to ride?”
“Yes, my lady. They say he appears to be recovered and quite well.”
“Miserable little bitch whore,” she screamed to no one in particular.
Such behavior had prevented Nuket Seza from gaining favor seven years earlier. Initially, the Sultan had assumed her ranting and raving to be a result of her pregnancy. He supposed that some women did not handle pregnancy all that well but after her second outburst in his presence, he simply stopped sending for her.
When she bore his first son, the Sultan was elated. He immediately decreed that Nuket Seza should have private apartments and all of the things befitting her new position of Baskadine, mother of the first-born son.
When the baby was three months old, the Sultan sent for her once more, and was dismayed to discover that the post-partum Nuket Seza was even worse. She seemed to be in a permanent state of agitated dissatisfaction that caused her to rage, abusing her servants and wreaking havoc everywhere she went. Fearing infanticide, she forbade everyone contact with her child, excepting his Sutnine [milk mother]. During visits to his father, the boy screamed and flailed his tiny arms when being held, quickly alienating the disappointed Sultan.
The only thing worse than the way Nuket Seza treated servants was the way she treated her child. When he cried, she beat him until his Sutnine could take him from her, out of earshot, where she tried to comfort and quiet him. By the time he had become a toddler, he cringed like an abused dog at the sight of his mother and hid from her whenever he could. This only enraged her more so that when she found him she beat him even harder.
At the age of three the boy began to hit back and Nuket Seza found this behavior enormously entertaining as well as admirable. She brought the two-year-old son of one of her servants into her household so that Mustapha would have someone smaller than himself to abuse. When the servant saw the bruises on her son’s body she brought him to the Kizlar Agasi, who removed the child and his mother from Nuket Seza’s household, sending them away from the seraglio with a generous pension.
From that time forward, the Kizlar Agasi systematically removed Nuket Seza’s abused servants and replaced them with ones dismissed by others for misdeeds and bad behavior. Being in service to Nuket Seza became a threat that hung over the heads of servants should they misbehave.
As Mustapha grew up, his behavior became so appalling that the Sultan had not laid eyes on him for four years. Nightmares disturbed Mustapha’s sleep, unless he swallowed an opium pill before retiring, and by the time he was eight years old, he had come to depend upon and look forward to his brief, nightly respite from the hell in which he lived.
After receiving the news of Aimée’s success, Nuket Seza emerged in a rage from her bath. Mustapha dropped the toy soldiers with which he had been playing and ran to hide in an old, unused ventilation pipe that had not yet been discovered by his mother.
Nuket Seza saw the pile of soldiers on the floor, with heads and limbs torn from their bodies, but could not locate her son. After searching in all of his known hiding places, she collapsed onto a divan that groaned beneath her weight.
“Bring me Arak, you useless, lazy whelp!” she screamed at one of her young serving girls.
Arak was an anise-flavored liquor that was, like all forms of alcohol, forbidden by Islamic law. Despite its prohibition, many odalisques enjoyed an occasional dram. Nuket Seza was the only one who drank until she became incoherently drunk.
She flung a half-empty bowl of almonds against the wall, where it smashed into dozens of pieces. “I want food, you stupid curs! Now. Bring me pilaf and mutton and fish. I want fresh fish, not stinking garbage like you give me last night. Fresh, you hear me?” she screamed, as her frightened servants ran from her rooms to the kitchen.
She ate and drank gluttonously, muttering to herself and trying to choose the best way to eliminate her new competitor from a menu of imagined scenarios. Fortunately for Aimée, Nuket Seza did not possess the intelligence required to concoct a sophisticated plot. However, her lack of intelligence was replaced by hatred and determination.
~ ~ ~
Oblivious to the plot against her, Aimée prepared for her second visit to the Sultan. She summoned one of the harem jewelers, recommended by the Circassian Kadine, and together they designed an extraordinary use for the Sultan’s gift. The sapphires would be strung onto long chains of gold so fine as to be invisible. These strands would be woven into her loose, blonde hair to look like they had been showered upon her, which indeed they had been. The jeweler and his assistants worked all day and all night to complete the order, and when the strands were fixed in place the effect was spectacular. As her hair caught the light, the stones moved and sparkled. To complement their beauty, Aimée instructed the harem dressmakers to design an ensemble of sapphire blue silk embroidered with golden threads. Next to her skin she wore a transparent gold silk chemise through which her rouged nipples pressed like little rubies.
The Circassian Kadine had insisted that she wear the diamond belt, since it had brought her such good luck, and once again, fastened it around her naked body. If she could not possess the girl, she could at least devour her loveliness with her eyes.
Delighted by Aimée’s unique design for the sapphires, the Kadine said, “Clever girl. The effect is quite extraordinary.”
She reached her hand out to touch one of the jewels, and Aimée tilted her head so that it would shift away from her grasp. The Kadine laughed as the sapphire dropped away from her fingers but did not fall.
“I am sure that His Majesty will approve. Now, this evening you must try to engage him in conversation and direct it towards the council meeting on Saturday. It is vital that he attend.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Oh, yes, I forgot to ask. Where are you in your moon cycle?”
Aimée thought for a moment and calculated in her mind. “I will bleed in another two weeks,” she said.
The Kadine’s eyes widened with delight. “Excellent, my dear, excellent. You must pay close attention to your cycle from now on.” She held the girl’s shoulders and placed a kiss on her forehead. “Go now, and report to me before you retire.”
As Aimée made her way up the Golden Path, the Saray Usta, charged with recording all odalisques’ visits to the sultan, wrote the name “Nakshidil” and the date of her visit in the register reserved for that purpose. She had entered it for the first time on the morning following Aimée’s first visit, as it had been a spontaneous copulation, rather than a scheduled one. Should a pregnancy occur the book would either prove or refute royal paternity.
This time, in order to prolong his pleas
ure of her, the Sultan closely followed the protocol that Aimée had been taught. He had her undress very slowly, discarding one piece of clothing at a time, telling her to turn her body this way and that, and to strike various seductive poses. The sapphires fascinated him and his delight in their beauty seemed to animate his face more than Aimée had seen on their first night. Or perhaps he is not so drowsy, she thought.
When she mounted him, he told her to face him as he reclined upon his pillows. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and leaned forward to place kiss after kiss on his face and head, allowing her hair to spill over him like a golden waterfall. She reached behind herself, encircling her thumb and middle finger around the base of his member where it entered her, and gently squeezed to increase his pleasure. He moaned and she squeezed harder as his thrusts became faster. His hands held her hips, pulling her down harder onto him as he drove himself deeper into her.
Aimée responded with honest enthusiasm, and suddenly lost herself in a sensation that began in her toes and seared through her body until it burst into a million stars that poured from one small point between her legs. Unable to control herself, her whole body vibrated as she cried out in unison with the Sultan, who continued thrusting his hips against the very spot from whence the stars had burst.
They collapsed simultaneously, Aimée’s body going limp and slumping down onto him as his flaccid member slipped from her and the warm fluid slowly trickled out.
Totally unprepared for what she had just experienced, she struggled to regain her composure. Fearful that she may have offended him, she whispered, “Forgive me, Sire. I was overcome.”
He tenderly moved her hair aside and looked into her eyes. “Forgive you?” He was so out of breath he could hardly speak. “Nakshidil, you fill my heart with joy.” He took one of her hands and placed it over his pounding heart. “For this, I will thank you, not forgive you.”
The fact that he had given her pleasure, had made her shriek with ecstasy, gave him a sense of manhood he had never felt before. The wonderment of shared pleasure filled him with excitement.
