“Not enough. Enlighten me.”

She looked at me for a measured moment, then threw a short nod before starting to walk back towards the palace. “The sultan moved to Yıldız because he fears for his life and believes that Dolmabahçe was not secure.” Dolmabahçe was one of the palaces Colin had cited as being partly responsible for the decline of the Ottoman treasury. Its elegant cut-stone façade with rows of vaulted windows on both floors rose above the Bosphorus, the waters lapping below gleaming white wrought-iron fences. Its interior, designed partially to impress Western diplomats and visitors, was ornate and luxurious, a perfect exercise in excess.

“Why is that?”

“Because he is seized with unfathomable paranoia, and the palace’s location on the Bosphorus made him feel vulnerable. Of course, there is not much that does not make him feel vulnerable.”

“Are you close to him?”

“I have been noticed,” she said, turning away as hot color crept up her cheeks.

“Handkerchief dropped in front of you to alert you that you’ve been chosen for the night?” I had read more than my share of fantastical novels set in the seraglio and found the rituals of harem life fascinating.

“I hate to disappoint your Western romanticism, but that is not how it happens. Reality is much more prosaic. Most of us never have any contact with the sultan. We see him—from a safe distance—on formal occasions. It’s not so easy to catch his attention, though. Some manage, of course, but it takes a not inconsiderable effort.”

“How did you do it?”

“I didn’t. The valide sultan selected me for him.” I felt my face tighten as she spoke. “Barbaric, isn’t it? But there’s no handkerchief dropping. The k?zlar aas?—chief black eunuch—informs you that you’ve been chosen, and you’re off to the hamam to prepare. Generally the sultan sends a small gift.”

“Had you never spoken to him before you were summoned to him?”

“I’d never even seen him. Had done all I could to keep from drawing attention to myself. If I must be here, I will have a quiet life of contemplation. You do not understand in the slightest how I am tormented.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. I could not imagine the horror of being sent to the bed of a man I knew not at all. Barbaric did not even approach a strong enough word.

“Most of the time, no one pays attention to me. My religious beliefs have kept me from becoming close to those around me.”

“You are not a Muslim?” I asked.

“And now, Lady Emily, you have discovered what it is that I need to hide. I’m a Christian. And every day—every night—that I spend with the sultan puts my soul in mortal danger. Have you any idea what it is to know that you are forced to live in sin?”

“Are you allowed—forgive me—to be Christian?” I asked.

“I do not speak of it to others. No one knows. I kneel in the direction of Mecca during times of prayer but recite my own words.”

“As a fellow Christian, I can assure you that if you are forced to do things—”

“The martyrs had the strength to stand up for their beliefs. I am not so brave, nor so virtuous. Now that I’ve spent the night with the sultan and am a gözde, I have better quarters and more privacy. If I am elevated further and become an ?kbal, or kadin—an official consort—my position would be better still. But I ought not be tempted by privacy and should have refused to go to him in the first place, regardless of the consequences.”

“What would the consequences have been?”

“I don’t know, but can well guess. No one rejects the sultan. The punishment would be unspeakable.”

“How did you come to your faith?”

“I have lots of time to myself here and fill most of my hours reading. One day I came upon a volume of Aquinas...” She sighed. “No, I must be honest with you. I asked for it—one in a long list of books I requested. One of our maids is a Christian, and I’ve heard her speak of the comfort it brings her—a comfort for which I have great need.”

“Why Aquinas?” I asked.

“She suggested his Summa Theologica to me. I devoured it and then moved on to every other of his works,” she said. “ ‘To convert somebody, go and take them by the hand and guide them.’ It was as if he spoke to me and took my hand in his own. And now, lacking the courage to refuse my sin, I have no option but to flee. Perhaps years of penance will compensate for my weakness.”

“You’re too hard on yourself,” I said.

“I will promise to aid your investigation in any way possible, but, please, please, Lady Emily—I implore that in exchange you help me find a way out of here.” We had reached the harem building, where a eunuch guard pulled open a door to let us in. “We can say nothing further of it now. Everything spoken in these walls runs through channels you can’t even imagine.”

“Shall we return outside?”

“Not with that man watching us,” she said. “Did you not see him in the trees?”

“No, I—”

The voice that interrupted me was not sharp, but startling regardless as it meandered, all soft bounces, through the stone corridor in which we stood.

“You would be in great danger were he not watching you.” The valide sultan, in a golden kaftan over pink-and-silver billowing Turkish trousers held in place with a diamond-encrusted girdle, slipped out from a doorway and took Roxelana’s arm, gripping with white knuckles. “It is time for you to go to the hamam. The sultan expects you tonight.”

Roxelana blushed crimson, the sides of her eyes crinkling as tears welled. “Yes, madam.”

“I have laid out clothing in your rooms. The servants will see to you in the hamam. Do not disappoint me.”

If Bezime had intimidated me, Perestu terrified. Her face possessed the calm smoothness of marble as she watched Roxelana walk away from us, but something in her eyes—a shot of calculating manipulation—shook me, and a pervasive feeling of dislocation swam through as I considered the reality of what I’d just witnessed. Bezime might have had her share of power, could believe in hope, but nothing in the context of this world was better than a prison. A beautiful setting, servants, and fine clothing could not make up for freedom—real freedom. English society was full of restrictions, particularly for the fairer sex, but women were not forced into such reprehensible situations with no possibility of ever escaping. I recalled Bezime’s claim that here, there was hope. She was right in her way, but that hope extended only to women whose goals fit into the most narrow of passages.

I was well acquainted with the difficulties faced when one’s happiness depended upon living a life that did not fit into the standard view of what was acceptable. Roxelana’s plight distressed me, and while I wished for an elegant and simple solution to her problems, I knew there was no such thing. The only sensible thing would be to dismiss the ideas mucking up my head. I could not assist her in any meaningful way, not so long as I was working for the Crown. But then again, it was not right—not moral—to leave her an unwilling slave. There had to be a way, subtle but radical, to save her.

“I am not certain of the best way to offer my aid to you.” Perestu’s voice sliced through my thoughts. “I will, of course, instruct the concubines to speak openly to you, but can make no promises that they will be forthcoming.”

I did not much believe her. She was the valide sultan; surely the concubines would do whatever she told them. “If you could perhaps start by telling me everything possible about Ceyden,” I said. “Was she a favorite of the sultan’s?”

“No, no.” She led me to a low sofa built along the outside wall of a charming room, stars painted on the ceiling. “Ceyden was not someone I thought fit for the sultan.”

“And what of his opinion?”

“Men’s opinions are oft en not worth considering.”

I could not help but laugh at this. “Does he know you feel this way?”

“I make sure of it,” she said. “For a very long time, the girl was not happy here. As a child, she was skittish and unpredictable. I understand this is to be explained by the violent manner in which she was taken from her parents, but we knew nothing of that until Sir Richard told her story after the murder. I am sorry for what she suffered, of course, but her inability to rise above it confirms I was correct about the flaws deep in her character.”

“She saw her mother murdered and was then kidnapped.”

“Yes. And was then taken extremely good care of and brought to the most spectacular palace to be found on earth. She was pampered, doted on, educated, given every luxury.”

“Did she have any memory of what she’d been through?”

“Not at all. We think she was around five when she came to us—a gift from a noble family. They’d bought her from traders, I suppose, and had her in their household for at least two years. It is not unheard of to present the sultan with such a girl—it is an honor. She didn’t speak English until Bezime taught her, and if I remember, she had a difficult time of it. It was strange—she seemed to have an affinity for languages, but English always troubled her. She all but refused to speak it.”

I pressed my lips together hard, thinking of the little girl pulled away from her dying mother. “Surely that was because she remembered something of her past?”

“She was a proud girl and knew she hadn’t mastered the language. It came as no surprise that she would avoid showcasing a weakness.”

“Did she come to find a comfortable place here?”

“Eventually. As she got older, she began to enjoy the politics of the harem, and she did everything in her power to catch the notice of my son.”