MELDA collapsed onto the divan, weeping.

She was dressed in the usual harem motley, a jumble of tailored and traditional costume bought in Paris and the Grand Bazaar, Turkish slippers peeping out from beneath French petticoats, a slashed and striped velvet jacket over a bodice of ruched silk, a corded girdle and a muslin shawl.

Yashim drew up a stool and perched on it, one leg drawn up, wrists dangling.

"Melda, my name is Yashim. I want to talk about what happened to Elif."

The girl covered her face with her hands.

"She was ill, Melda, wasn't she? Something inside, that was hurting her very badly. She should have seen a doctor." He frowned. "You know what a doctor is, Melda?"

Melda's shoulders heaved. Very gently, Yashim took her wrists and lowered her hands.

"Melda?"

She turned her face away.

"Tell me," Yashim urged. "Tell me what happened to Elif."

She shook her head convulsively.

"I-have-seen-the engine," she gasped.

"The engine?"

She dragged her hands free and clapped them over her ears, rocking to and fro.

"I don't understand, Melda."

Her eyes grew very wide, and she moved her hands to cover her mouth. Outside, the muezzin was calling the faithful to Friday prayers.

"How could you understand?" she burst out. "You-did you step out from a rock, or drop from a stork's beak? Did I grow like an apple on a tree? No!" Bright spots had appeared on her cheeks, and her hands were clenched. Gone was the court lisp, the fluting voice, the trembling eyelash. Melda spoke in the stony voice of the mountains where she was raised; and she evoked an ancient bitterness, as old as the pagan G.o.ds of Circa.s.sia. "Men plant children in our bellies, and we bear them until we die."

Yashim rocked slowly back.

Melda turned her eyes on him and then, like a snake, she drew back her head and spat.

"Elif was pregnant."

Yashim remained motionless, gazing at the girl's face. "The sultan chose her?"

The Kislar aga had said nothing about that, Yashim thought. Everything about a girl was carefully considered before she was promoted to gozde: her looks, her bearing, her conduct. To be selected to share the sultan's bed was a very high honor: from it, with ordinary luck, flowed all the rewards the sultan could bestow upon a woman-rank, and fortune, and power within these four walls.

"The sultan?" Her lips trembled. "How? How, efendi, could that be?"

She covered her face with her hands and began to sob.

Yashim murmured a few words: he hardly knew what to say. He stood up and went to find the Kislar aga.

76.

"TELL me-" He hesitated. "Was Elif a gozde?"

The aga looked puzzled. "A gozde? Certainly not. Elif was a musician, Yashim. She played in the ladies' orchestra, and she and Melda were also kalfas. They look after a little girl."

"And before she came here? Three, four months ago, when Abdulmecid was still a prince?"

Ibou shrugged. "I don't understand your questions, Yashim."

"I want to know when Elif met the sultan. Perhaps while he was still crown prince?"

"She didn't meet him. Not face-to-face, not to be introduced. The only time she's seen Abdulmecid is at our concerts. We do not have the sultan roaming the corridors, meeting ladies."

"Ibou," Yashim said gently. "It seems that Elif was pregnant."

The silence between them p.r.i.c.kled like toasted spice.

"Do you know what you are saying?" Ibou whispered. His face was waxy with-what? Astonishment? Fear?

"Elif died from bleeding," Yashim said. "What you saw, those marks, were made by her own nails. She was clawing at her own flesh." He paused. "What you haven't seen is the sheet under the bed. It's soaked in blood. If Melda is right, I would guess that Elif miscarried."

The aga collected himself. "No. Pembe was the sultan's gozde before he became sultan-with the unfortunate results you know about. Since then, he has taken only two other women. Leyla and Demet, both of them selected by-b-b-by me, and B-Bezmialem. To suggest that the sultan would take another woman into his bed, without protocol, is absurd. He is ruled by the traditions of the house of Osman. And Demet and Leyla would prevent it, anyway."

"To the death?"

Ibou frowned. "They would only have to speak to me, Yashim. There would be no need to talk of death."

Yashim sighed. The legitimate gozde would hardly stand idly by while the sultan dallied with another girl.

"This is not a house in the city, Yashim. The sultan never goes alone. Every minute of the day, every hour of the night, he is watched and cared for."

"Was Elif watched every minute of the day? At night?"

"She is with the others, Yashim. You now how it is."

"But if Elif was pregnant, and she did not sleep with the sultan ..."

Ibou's face clouded. "Impossible."

If what Yashim implied was true, it was not just about one girl, or the lapse of a single aga. This was a taint that would spread like the blood across the quilt, but more fatal, more insidious, than either of them could imagine.

"Could she-have slept with another man?"

The aga slowly turned his head. His lips peeled back. "Is this what the girl Melda says? What to do, Yashim efendi? I cannot let her say such a thing."

Yashim had known agas who would have strangled a girl with their bare hands without hesitation or remorse; but not Ibou.

"We need to get Melda away," he said. "Somewhere she can feel safe."

77.

MELDA startled at the water. Through the black gauze of her burka the Bosphorus looked dull and menacing, speckled with white.

Perhaps the water was to be her grave.

She entertained few illusions. The lala who had asked her questions had said they were going somewhere safe. She had read the expression in his eyes and thought that it could have been rea.s.surance: but then she was not sure what rea.s.surance looked like anymore, or how to tell the real from the false.

What had happened to Elif was real. Evidently so: the blood was real blood, the agony unfeigned. And then Elif was dead.

Her secret killed her.

And she, Melda, shared the secret.

The lala gestured for her to seat herself. When he smiled, did he smile with his eyes, or only move the muscles around his mouth? It was hard to tell from behind the mask she wore.

The engine was terrible enough. Perhaps there were other engines that he had prepared. Other systems.

The caique shot forward, over the gray water.

78.

HYACINTH padded softly across the polished stones, jangling his keys. Today he had started to wear his woolen slippers; he felt the cold. The valide had ordered the fires made up, and when he was called from his own snug cubicle he startled at the wind that blew down the Golden Road.

"Evet, evet," Hyacinth grumbled as he approached the little door.

Yashim, with a woman.

"Well, well," he said, blinking up at them both. "Another mouth to feed?"

Yashim said quietly: "Another mouth, Hyacinth, if you want to put it like that."

The woman stepped into the vestibule. The wind caught at her veil and she raised it with gloved hands, revealing a face Hyacinth could not recall.

The corners of his mouth turned down. "Coming, going, there's nothing regular anymore, is there?" He peered at Melda more closely. "I don't know you."

She said nothing, so he added: "You don't look well. Pretty and young, not like the rest of them here, perhaps. But not very well."

"Melda needs rest, Hyacinth."

"What does the valide say, Yashim efendi?"

"You needn't trouble the valide, Hyacinth," Yashim said firmly. "I'll look in on her now. Anyway, it's just for a short while."

"I'll put her in the old dormitory. Light the fire." He took the girl by the arm. She flinched, but either he didn't notice or he chose to ignore it. "Melda, is it? You'll be all right. Old Hyacinth will see to that."

He hefted the keys in his other hand. Yashim put his hand to his chest, and bowed.

79.

DOGS barked and pulled on their chains as the man approached the farm.

He fingered the knife in his satchel. He was very tired and had gone two days without food.

"I am very strong," he said. "I can work."

The farmer did not understand his words, but the man showed his biceps and he nodded. He was not inhospitable.

The man worked for him for two weeks. In return he received food and a place to rest.

One morning, he was gone.

80.