The Panther and The Pearl (13 page)

“It always startles me to hear you speaking English,” Sarah said mildly.

“Nonsense. You were plotting, as usual.”

“If you think that, why did you invite me to come on this excursion?” Sarah asked.

“Because I wanted to talk to you, and my grandson gets suspicious if I request too many audiences with you. He thinks I’m—how do you say it? Up to something.”

Sarah suppressed a smile. “Are you?”

“Definitely. I know you want to get out of here, and I have a plan, one that doesn’t involve escaping from the palace in the dead of night and swimming the Bosporus.”

She now had Sarah’s full attention.

“I want you to marry my grandson and give him an heir. If you do, I will make sure that as soon as you wish to leave, you will have safe passage from the palace and back home to the United States. I have my own retainers, my own resources, people that I can bribe. Kalid will know nothing of it.”

Sarah was so dumbfounded that she was silent for a full minute. The carriage wheels creaked on the unpaved road, and the coach weaved as her thoughts raced wildly.

“Are you talking about my leaving the child behind when I go?” Sarah finally managed to say. She had to make some reply to this preposterous suggestion.

“Of course. He would take over from my grandson when he dies; the child must remain here.”

Sarah didn’t know whether to hit her or burst out laughing. When she had her emotions under control she said, “Valide pashana, I thank you for your kind offer, but I could never leave a child of mine under any circumstances.”

“But my grandson will have no other woman but you! What am I to do? If he dies without an heir, the pashadom will be plunged into chaos. There will be civil war!”

“How old is Kalid?” Sarah asked.

Kosem thought about it.

“Thirty?” she said at length.

“I think he has a few years left to father children,” Sarah observed dryly.

“But I will not live to see it! I must know the line is secure before I die, don’t you understand?”

Sarah sighed. “Your highness, I can’t help you. I think you should talk to your advisors about this, it’s really family business.”

“I have done so,” Kosem said morosely, staring out the window of the coach. “Nothing comes of it.”

The sounds of the bazaar were filtering into the carriage, getting louder and more insistent as they approached the center of the town. Sarah turned to look out the window and was overwhelmed by the sights and sounds and smells.

Striped stalls were set up so close to one another that they seemed to be one, the alleys between them hardly wide enough for a person to walk. The wares displayed were so varied as to dazzle the eye: reed baskets, richly colored blankets and shawls, wool rugs and countless woven items, lengths of silk and other fine cloth, silver and metalwork, jewelry and other finery, herbs and roots for charms and potions, perfumes and lotions and scented oils. And the food! Hanging bunches of dried fish, sweetmeats to be tied in napkins, kebobs heated over braziers, roasted nuts and vegetables, all of it sending out a delicious scent that mingled with the smell of heat and dust and humanity. And transcending everything was the din: the cries of the vendors hawking their wares and the babble of voices speaking diverse languages.

Sarah stared, fascinated. She had never seen so many different types of people in one place. There were men in caftans and in Western clothes but wearing red fezzes; halberdiers and eunuchs in their white pants and black and gold short jackets; janissaries, the Sultan’s paid military, in dark blue uniforms; veiled women of all shapes and sizes; blacks from Nubia and Abyssinia and the upper reaches of the Nile in their colorful native dress; and European traders of every skin hue and country, all mingled in the crowd like varicolored pebbles on a beach.

“You may have anything you wish from the bazaar, upon my grandson’s instruction,” Kosem said to Sarah. “Just gesture for it and the eunuchs will buy it.”

The pashana’s carriage stopped in a cobbled street at the edge of the bazaar, and the other harem coaches lined up behind it. Sarah and Kosem alighted from the vehicle by means of a set of drop stairs, assisted by the khislar. As they walked forward, Kosem took Sarah’s arm, Achmed fell into step beside them, and the eunuchs brought up the rear.

They had obviously been well instructed by the pasha.

“What do you think of this?” Kosem asked, holding up a length of poppy silk as they passed a stall displaying bolts of the luxurious cloth dyed every color of the spectrum.

“Very pretty,” Sarah said, and Kosem signaled one of the eunuchs to purchase it. Sarah realized that she had to be careful; she would wind up with half the bazaar if she approved of everything she saw.

“Do you need anything?” Sarah asked.

Kosem looked at her. “Need?” she said.

Sarah realized that it had been a foolish question. The pashana’s purchases were matters of whim, not necessity.

They turned down an alley and Kosem stooped to admire a silver urn engraved with twining grape leaves around its rim. Sarah bent her head and scanned the rear of the alley covertly. All she could see was the dirt packed road continuing to either side and a stone building with an arched entrance facing her.

It didn’t look very promising.

Kosem said something in Turkish, and the merchant answered in a flowery speech.

Kosem shook her head.

“Are you buying it?” Sarah asked.

“He wants too much.”

“Don’t you bargain with him?” Sarah asked, remembering the infamous negotiations regarding a purchase in the Middle East. This bartering was almost an art form.

“Certainly not,” Kosem replied. “He should be honored to sell to the valide pashana.”

Sarah looked away, her lips twitching.

The merchant ran after them as they walked on, and Kosem wound up with the urn, at her price.

After about an hour of this process, the eunuchs were so laden with booty that Achmed sent them back to the carriage with it. As the khislar stood directing them, Kosem stopped to admire a pair of cast bronze earbobs inlaid with turquoise, and Sarah saw her chance.

She grabbed two trays of jewelry and upset them, scattering rings and bracelets and diadems on the ground. The stall owner shrieked, and other shoppers jumped back out of the way as Sarah ripped two hanging rugs in a neighboring stall from their hooks and flung them in the faces of those nearest her. Then she whirled and ran for her life as Kosem turned to see the source of the commotion and the khislar looked over his shoulder and shouted in alarm.

The eunuchs dropped their burdens and dashed after Sarah with the khislar hot on their heels. Sarah wrapped her feradge over her arm to allow her legs more freedom of movement and ran headlong around a corner, where she crashed into a man leading a donkey laden with boxes of green figs. She spun around and headed in the other direction, where people cleared out of her way as she dashed past them. She ran until she was out of the bazaar and the houses were farther apart, with courtyards between them and splashing fountains surrounded by flowering gardens. This was obviously a residential section, but Sarah ran on until the stitch in her side was so painful that she slumped against the wall of a stucco house, gasping for breath. She was wiping her perspiring face with the edge of her cloak when the door to the street opened. A woman came out of the house, wearing the face veil, dumping a pail of water into the street.

She turned and saw Sarah, who shrank back against the wall. It was several seconds before Sarah realized that the woman was gesturing for Sarah to come inside the house. Not believing her luck, Sarah scanned the street quickly for her pursuers and then followed her hostess into the house.

The main room was furnished with a hand woven rug and a large table and chairs set before an open hearth that took up most of one stone wall. Despite the heat, a small fire was burning and a cooking pot hung over it. A baby was sleeping in a hand carved cradle in the corner, and an oil lamp hung from a chain overhead.

The woman unpinned her face veil and offered Sarah a seat. Sarah collapsed into it, removing her feradge and yashmak, sighing gratefully. The woman lifted the pot from its hook and raised her brows, asking if Sarah wanted something to eat. Sarah shook her head and mimed drinking, asking for water. The woman produced a jug and poured watered wine from it into a cup and handed it to Sarah. Sarah downed half of it in one gulp, grimacing at its bitterness, but it quenched her thirst. She rested and then finished the drink, sitting back and closing her eyes.

A man came in from the back room, and the woman signaled to him with her eyes, indicating Sarah. The man nodded and withdrew quickly, dropping the beaded curtain between the two rooms.

It was several minutes before Sarah opened her eyes again; she had almost fallen asleep. Her benefactor was sitting in a chair opposite her, stitching on a piece of needlework confined in a hoop. Sarah tried to remember what Turkish she knew.

“Tessekur ederim,” she said, thanking the woman for her spontaneous hospitality.

The woman nodded and smiled.

“Can I get a carriage from here to the docks?” Sarah asked in elementary Turkish. James lived near the docks.

The woman shrugged incomprehension.

Sarah stared at her, puzzled. She had just understood when Sarah thanked her. Maybe she spoke only a few words of Turkish. Maybe she was Armenian or Circassian; they had their own sections in the city were their native languages were spoken.

Sarah tried again, asking how far she was from the sea. She had no idea whether she had run away from it or toward it, she had changed direction so many times.

The woman shrugged again, then rose and dished up a bowl of stew from the hanging pot, placing it before Sarah together with a wooden spoon.

Sarah realized that she was famished; she had eaten nothing since her breakfast of feta cheese and honey, and her recent exercise had given her an appetite. She was eating heartily when the door to the street opened, and both women looked up to see Achmed, khislar to Kalid Shah, framed in the arched entrance.

Chapter 6

James Woolcott sat fidgeting in the outer office of the Under Secretary to the American Ambassador in Constantinople, holding his fedora in his hands. He was wearing a dark blue, double breasted frock coat with a matching vest and striped gray trousers. His standing collar was teamed with a four-in-hand tie, and a pair of dove gray gloves was folded into his waistcoat pocket.

He believed that in order to be taken seriously, he must dress for the occasion.

Minor functionaries bustled past him, stacks of paper in hand, and a large American flag stood in a corner to his left, its wide border decorated with gold braid. He was staring at the portrait of President Chester A. Arthur on the facing wall when the door to the secretary’s office opened and a young diplomat-in-training said, “Secretary Danforth will see you now.”

James rose and entered the inner office, which was well furnished in teak and oak, with a local Kirman carpet on the floor. Heavy red drapes with gold tassels partially concealed the grilled windows and a bust of the late President Lincoln stood on a pedestal by the door.

Secretary Danforth came out from behind his massive desk and extended his hand. James shook it and then sat in the guest chair indicated by Danforth as he resumed his seat.

“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Woolcott. I understand that you have a thriving business here. I’m always proud to make the acquaintance of successful Americans abroad. Their prosperity improves the image of our country to the natives. Now how can we here at the embassy be of service to you?”

Danforth was a portly man in his forties with a florid face and the hail-fellow-well-met air of a career diplomat. He was also something of a dandy, sporting a cutaway coat with checked trousers and a trim, waxed moustache.

James cleared his throat. “Well, Mr. Danforth, about six weeks ago my cousin Sarah came from Boston to visit me here. She spent some time seeing the local churches and sights and became fascinated with the harem at Topkapi.”

“Shocking practice,” Danforth said, frowning.

“Yes, of course. But I knew Sarah wanted to see it, and when I became aware that the Sultan was seeking a teacher for his daughter, I arranged for my cousin to go into the harem as an English tutor for the Princess Roxalena.”

Danforth raised his brows. “Was that wise?”

“Apparently not. I saw no harm in it at the time, as the Sultan has traditionally been tolerant of Western influences, but Sarah had only been inside the harem about three weeks when she disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Danforth echoed.

“Yes. I received a message from the Princess saying that Sarah had been sold into the harem of the Pasha of Bursa for a sum of money and an heirloom that the Sultan had been coveting for some time.”

“The Pasha of Bursa?” Danforth said, smiling. “Well, that’s no problem at all, Mr. Woolcott. The pasha’s a reasonable fellow, has an Oxford education. I’ll just get in touch with him and ask him to return your cousin to you.”

James swallowed nervously. “I . . . ah, don’t think you understand the situation, Secretary Danforth. The pasha bought Sarah for himself, to be kept for him personally. For his . . . pleasure.”