He was almost done when there was a knock on the door. A chaush in palace uniform stood at the top of the stairs, carrying an invitation on vermilion paper.

The chief black eunuch requested Yashim's presence at the Besiktas palace that afternoon.

Yashim bowed, placed a hand to his chest, and murmured: "I shall attend, inshallah."

72.

YASHIM had not seen the Kislar aga for several months, and he was shocked by the change in his appearance. His blue-black skin had lost its sheen, and he looked tired and thinner than he had seemed in the summer; but it was his manner that most surprised Yashim.

He had developed a stammer.

"Ya-Ya-Ya-Yashim!" He clapped his skinny brown hands together. "I just knew you would come!"

Yashim bowed. "You sent for me, Ibou."

"Of course. Do sit d-d-down. Have a"-his head jerked, and he blinked-"a sweetmeat?"

He gestured to a tray, and then popped a small green lok.u.m into his mouth.

Yashim settled on the divan. "How are the girls? Settling now, I imagine."

The Kislar aga pa.s.sed a hand over his face and shuddered. "They're like Ta-Ta-Tatars."

Yashim pursed his lips. He thought of the Kislar agas he had known, men of terrifying girth and power, ruling the harem like cruel tyrants. At least, he had often thought them cruel: perhaps they exercised proper discipline. Perhaps that was necessary.

The Kislar aga twisted his long fingers. "They are hard to manage. Impudent and w-w-worse. They don't listen. But that's only p-p-part of it, Yashim. Some of them are a bit wild, but I could hope to settle them eventually. It's the atmosphere. The strain."

Yashim spread his hands. "A young sultan, new girls. It goes to their heads."

Ibou shook his head. "It's not that. It's as if people were a-a-a-" He blinked, jerked his chin. "Afraid."

"Afraid? Afraid of what?"

The black man hung his head. "Magic. Evil eye."

He described the little homunculus he had found, studded with a child's teeth. His own teeth chattered as he spoke. "And P-P-Pembe, Yashim. With the child that did not survive. She said it was the l-l-l-lady Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-"

"Talfa? Bah!" Yashim dismissed the story with an angry wave. "Potions and curses, Ibou." But he could see the trouble in Ibou's eyes. "The sultan and his girls are very young. And Bezmialem ... perhaps ..."

"Of course." Ibou gave an angry shrug. "She is mother to the sultan. That far, she is a valide. But she is not mother to the harem."

"Talfa, then, herself? Have you talked to her?"

Ibou shook his head. "Talfa can't organize everything. She only returned to the harem after her husband's death. She's still making friends."

"Making friends?"

"I saw you talking to Talfa, Yashim."

"She wondered why I didn't live at the palace."

Ibou gave him a look of surprise-eagerness, almost. "But then perhaps, my friend-"

Yashim raised both hands. "I explained to her, Ibou, that the sultan wants me elsewhere."

"The valide at Topkapi? We could a-a-ask her to come."

It was Yashim's turn to look surprised. "She's quite frail."

The Kislar aga held up his hands, palms upward. "She has the experience, Yashim-and all the girls are terrified of her." He gave a guilty smile. "I'm terrified of her."

Yashim saw no reason to dispute the point. He said: "At her age, to move ..."

But Ibou was shaking his head. Having taken up the thought, he seemed reluctant to let it drop. "The valide will be very happy," he insisted. "And she has a handmaiden who is very good, very caring."

Yashim raised an eyebrow. The valide had run through more handmaidens than Selim the Grim had had viziers; she changed them like gloves. He remembered the last one, an able Circa.s.sian with a pleasant, open face. The valide had boxed her ears and sent her to the imperial laundry because, she said, her ankles were too thick.

"I've seen her," he agreed. "The flautist."

"Tulin." The Kislar aga nodded. "Very popular girl, actually. She helps to carry the ladies' orchestra-the valide allows her over to rehea.r.s.e on Thursdays. She's a little older than most of the girls."

"I suppose that's an advantage."

"That's why I bought her. The valide eats the younger ones for breakfast."

Ibou's stammer seemed to have improved, Yashim noticed. "You've thought this out already, haven't you?"

The Kislar aga blinked again. "C-c-c-c-certainly not. I wanted your advice, th-th-that's all."

Yashim stared at his feet. "I'd miss her, at Topkapi."

The Kislar aga laid a hand tenderly on Yashim's knee. "We'll all miss her one day, Yashim. And you more than a-a-anyone, I'm sure." He smiled, and patted his knee. "So you will ask her?"

"Ask her?"

"Why, the valide! Ask her to come to Besiktas, Yashim. The harem needs a mother. As for Talfa-" The Kislar aga c.o.c.ked his head. "What's that?"

They heard the sound of running feet outside in the corridor, and the door was flung back to admit a eunuch, who immediately hurled himself to his knees.

"Aga!" He was deathly pale. His eyes rolled in his head. Through chattering teeth he cried out: "I think she is dying! Everywhere is blood, aga. Come!"

73.

THE Kislar aga rolled from the divan and clutched the babbling eunuch by the shoulder.

"Who is dying? Show me."

Yashim followed. The fluttering eunuch ran half stooped with outstretched arms along the corridor, like a startled hen. Girls clutched their hands to their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and pressed themselves to the wall, their mouths ovals of surprise.

At the foot of the stairs the eunuch seemed to droop, clinging to the newel post for support.

"Up there, aga! The dormitory ..."

The aga brushed past him, and they mounted the stairs two at a time. At the top the aga whirled down a corridor. He flung a door back with a blow from his open hand and stood there, panting, turning his head from side to side.

A girl sprang from the side of the bed with a scream of fright, her hands to her ears. Ibou strode forward and grabbed her wrist; the girl winced and bent at the waist, refusing to lower her hands.

"What are you doing?" he hissed.

Yashim saw it all like a tableau from the doorway: the girl squealing, Ibou gripping her wrist in his long hand, his eyes swiveling to the bed under the window, and the bed itself, with a white satin quilt embroidered minutely with multicolored flowers.

Beneath the quilt, black hair trailing wide across the pillows, lay another girl, staring straight at Yashim. Her eyes glittered like black pearls. As Yashim stepped forward into the room, the hairs p.r.i.c.kling on the back of his neck, the girl in the bed moved very slightly: her jaw sagged.

"He said-blood!" Ibou shook the girl again. "Where is this blood!"

The eyes of the girl on the bed did not follow Yashim.

"She's dead," he said quietly.

Ibou turned his head and his eyes grew wide as they moved from the girl's face to the flowered quilt draped across her body.

In the center of the bed, between the shape of the girl's thighs, a new flower was blooming on the patterned quilt, growing larger and brighter than all the rest.

74.

THE Kislar aga twitched the quilt back.

Yashim took one look and turned his head away.

The aga's jaw dropped. His grip on the girl relaxed. She wrenched herself free and blundered to the door.

Yashim made no effort to stop her.

The girl on the bed lay naked from the waist down, her legs outspread above a dark stain between her thighs. Deep welts were scored across the skin of her belly, as though she had been clawed by a great cat; fresh blood still oozed from the livid marks.

Ibou put his hand to his mouth.

"Go, Ibou. This is what you must do. Get green tea and ginger, straightaway." Yashim laid a hand on the aga's arm. "Have it sent to this room. Immediately, do you understand?"

"She's dead."

"Yes, she's dead," Yashim agreed. "The tea is for me."

He saw Ibou's color beginning to return.

"Then go and find the girl. What's her name?"

"I-I don't know." The aga yawned suddenly, flashing his gold teeth. "Her name is Melda."

"Find Melda." Yashim spoke slowly, with emphasis. "Find her, and take her to your room. When you are there, wait for me."

Yashim steered the aga toward the door. All the man's strength seemed to have drained away: he moved without protest, his head bobbing.

"Tea, Ibou. Then find Melda. I'll join you in your room."

With the aga gone, Yashim closed the door and rubbed his hands over his face.

He had no expectation of recognizing the dead girl. He knew a few of the harem girls by sight, but for the most part they were anonymous, like beautiful cattle. Naked, unadorned, only the manner of her death distinguished her from a hundred others behind these walls. He wondered what the aga could tell him; what Melda knew.

He spent some time examining the welts on her belly. He examined her hands. There were faint traces of blood on her thighs, and her skin had already begun to cool when he turned her carefully onto her side. There was a deep pool of blood on the sheet beneath her.

He plucked at the sheet. When it did not give way he looked and saw that it was the thin mattress, and the sheet had gone.

He found the sheet easily, under the bed. It was screwed into a loose ball and it was soaked in blood.

75.