For many years, Hyacinth had recognized his hammam hour each morning as the highlight of his day.
Now, turning his long, elegant feet under the hot water of the spigot, he almost wanted to hug himself. He had not one, but two delicious pleasures to rouse him from his sleep-not to mention prayers, he mentally added, uncertain whether prayers strictly constituted a pleasure or not.
After the bath-a little further treat, why not? The valide’s new slave, the woman Tulin, had introduced it to the court. The eunuchs at Topkapi were suffering a little from neglect when Tulin came to help the valide, for the luminaries of Hyacinth’s restricted world clustered around the sultan in his new palace at Besiktas. Gone were the armies of cooks who worked from dawn till dusk to serve the choicest tidbits to the happy few. Gone, too, the young women, their laughter, their idle chatter, and all the gossip that their activities and moods created. Hyacinth loved his mistress, but the valide could be demanding-and there were no distractions anymore. The division of the family had brought him the only sorrow he had ever really known. He had loved the soft women. He had loved their babies.
But Tulin was like a breath from the other world! Returning from her orchestra at Besiktas, she brought gossip from the harem-why, when she talked about those women, it was almost as if one knew them intimately oneself! Poor Pembe’s grief-that was just too sad. And Maral’s face, when she heard the news! Pouf! What a cow-but so lovely, of course. It was the Circassian blood. He, Hyacinth, knew all about Circassians.
And Tulin was young. She made the valide happy. Sometimes, when the valide wasn’t listening, Tulin would tell Hyacinth about the babies in the sultan’s harem, the little ones who ran about at their mothers’ knees, all their little jokes and funny names. The valide wasn’t interested in them, really, but Hyacinth couldn’t get enough. He used to be a favorite with the little ones, who pulled his lobey ears and ordered him about, sometimes, like sultans themselves. Quite innocent! Their sudden tempers and equally sudden smiles reminded him of-well, people like himself.
He dried himself and dressed with care. He shuffled quickly down the corridor and out into the valide’s courtyard.
Tulin’s door, he saw with rising expectation, was ajar. And now he could smell it, too.
“Hello, my dove!” He peered around the door, smiling, and waggled his fingers. “Am I too early for you?”
She looked up and smiled. “I saw you going to the hammam, Hyacinth efendi. And I thought-he’ll be an hour! At least an hour.”
She raised her eyebrows, and Hyacinth chuckled.
“So you are in perfect time.”
With a bow, and the same radiant smile, she offered him a steaming bowl of chocolate.
61
“ There.” Preen flashed him a look of triumph. “I told you Mrs. Satzos was good.”
Yashim nodded in sardonic agreement. “All my worries are over now, Preen. Thanks.” He raised a finger and the coffee boy darted forward. “Two, medium sweet.”
“She goes to the palace every week. The harem ladies can’t get enough of her.”
Yashim smiled. “You are a snob, Preen.”
She tossed her head. “We’re all snobs, one way or another.” When Yashim didn’t reply, she added: “It’s you, isn’t it? The friend-that’s just what we say.”
Yashim looked surprised. He shook his head. “It’s not me, Preen. Not me at all.”
“Oh?” She raised a painted eyebrow.
“Forget what you think. I lied, yes-but I lied in saying that he was a friend.”
“An enemy.”
Yashim took a breath. “I don’t know, exactly.”
“Rich?”
Yashim smiled wanly.
“But you told Mrs. Satzos there were no women in the house.”
“Preen-you remember things too well.”
The boy arrived with coffee. When he had gone Preen leaned forward. “You told Mrs. Satzos that he’d gone to sea.”
“It’s better you don’t know,” Yashim said quickly.
“The Kapudan pasha. Fevzi Pasha, right?”
Yashim ran his finger around the rim of his cup.
“Fevzi Ahmet,” she said slowly. “I remember him. At a wedding, where we came to dance. It was a long time ago. One of the bridesmaids went for a walk in the garden. I saw her just as we were setting up, a country girl. I didn’t know her. But something happened between her and Fevzi Ahmet, Yashim. Her brother went berserk. He said he’d kill Fevzi Ahmet, wedding or no wedding.”
Angry spots had appeared on her cheeks. “Fevzi Ahmet took him for a little talk, instead, strolling about the cypress trees, and us beginning to dance.” Preen caressed her neck. “When I saw him walking with the brother, at the wedding, I knew it was all arranged. Fevzi was-I don’t know, sneering. He knew that no one could touch him.”
Yashim bowed his head.
“They came from Erzurum, the girl and her family. I heard that she drowned there two weeks later, in the pool.”
She shuddered.
Yashim bit his lip. He knew what Preen had told him would be true.
“Fevzi Ahmet was my mentor for three years,” he said.
He saw her shrink back. Her voice seemed to come from somewhere farther off.
“Mentor? Like-a teacher?”
His own voice sounded harsh. “I worked for him years ago. I was at the palace school, Preen. You knew that. I ran away, like Kadri. My training was almost over, and I didn’t know what they had planned for me. I didn’t know what I was good for. I was afraid of being… inactive. I thought they might make me carry shawls for odalisques, or library books, you know. I was afraid of being trapped in the palace.”
“You don’t like to be trapped, do you?” She nodded. “Go on.”
“I went back a few days later. My tutor thought I had been to Eyup, to visit the tomb of the Companion of the Prophet. I don’t know why. He thought it was meritorious. That’s when Fevzi Ahmet talked to me, the first time. He’d been watching me, he said.”
Preen hoicked her shoulders, in a little shudder. “He would.”
“He offered me a job, doing something I didn’t even know people could do.” He cracked his knuckles anxiously. “He was the sultan’s tebdil khasseky- his confidential agent.”
Preen drew up her chin. “Like you.”
Yashim ducked his head and looked uncomfortable. “I try to do things differently.”
“Of course.”
“I worked for others for a few years at first, to gain experience. That was Fevzi Ahmet’s idea. To develop talents, skills, which he could use. Languages, for instance. He knew only Turkish and some Greek.”
“Limiting.”
Yashim blew out his cheeks. “I thought it sounded like a fine thing-to be the sultan’s arrow, carrying his messages and his private orders. Watching over his safety. I was young and-well, Fevzi Ahmet seemed very energetic, and very sure of himself.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“He was obviously a tough bastard-even I could tell that much. But I thought that was how it had to be. Hard, but loyal. People were afraid of him because he had the sultan’s special commission.”
“Are you sure?” Preen leaned forward. “I thought people were afraid of him because he did frightening things, Yashim.”
“Sultan Mahmut needed loyal men back then, when Fevzi Ahmet began,” Yashim said. “He needed men like that. He was trying to reestablish control. The Janissary time. You remember.”
“And you became his boy.”
Yashim nodded. Fevzi the Hunter.
“That was our understanding. I had gained experience of the outside world. Or so I thought.”
He put his hands on his knees, remembering Russia.
The bitterness of Fevzi’s debt.
“It seemed like a way into the world outside.”
“And was it?”
“We operated in different ways,” Yashim said finally. “It took me a while to understand that. I think there is always a little gap somewhere, however hard you try to fit everything together. A small space, for something like grace, or mercy.”