They had travelled only a few hundred yards when they heard voices and footsteps echoing down the passage behind them. Isa dropped his torch, and they stumbled on in the darkness. The steps behind them grew louder, and soon they could see the faint glow of advancing torchlight behind them. Sitt Hatun felt something brush by her side, and then heard it skitter along the floor ahead in the darkness. 'Arrows,' Isa hissed. 'Stay close to the walls.' Ahead, Sitt Hatun could see a break in the darkness, a relative brightness that marked the end of the tunnel. A few seconds later they were through, running down a sandy slope towards the banks of the river.
On the shore sat a small boat, guarded by two men holding swords. Isa rushed straight towards the men. He stopped just short of them and flung a white powder into their faces. The men collapsed, clawing at their throats and eyes, and Isa stepped over them and into the boat, waving for Sitt Hatun and Anna to follow. They clambered in, and Isa shoved off. Sitt Hatun glanced behind her and saw five black-clad men rush out of the tunnel, gesturing and yelling. She was still watching them when an arrow sank into the prow just in front of her. 'Stay down,' Isa barked, as more arrows whizzed past. He took a few strokes at the oars and the current caught the boat, pushing it faster and faster down the river. Isa abandoned the oars and joined them in the bottom of the boat. After a minute, the arrows stopped, and slowly they all rose from their cramped positions. Isa took up the oars again, while Sitt Hatun and Anna moved into the prow.
'You are hurt!' Sitt Hatun cried, as she noticed that Anna's clothes were covered with blood.
'It is not mine, My Lady.'
'That man you killed…' Sitt Hatun said. 'Where did you learn to fight like that?'
Anna shrugged. 'My parents died when I was young, and I had to fend for myself.'
It was a cold spring night, and the two of them huddled together in the prow of the boat, looking back on the sprawling imperial palace, the white stone walls lit by hundreds of winking torches. 'The next time we see those walls,' Sitt Hatun swore softly, 'we shall enter in glory, and Gulbehar shall tremble in fear.' They had been on the river no more than a few minutes when Isa began to row for the shore. He docked the boat at a small pier in Manisa's river port. Then, once they were out of the boat, he pushed it back out into the river, letting it drift away. 'Come, we haven't much time,' he told them and led them into the dark, narrow streets of the city. Their short trip ended at the gate of an innocuous white house in the merchant's district. Isa unlocked the gate and led them through a small courtyard and into the home. They emerged into a round common room with several more passageways branching off from it. A low table sat in the middle of the room, lit by candles and set with food and drink. Halil, wearing a green satin robe with swirling patterns in gold, was seated on a cushion beside the table. It was the first time that Sitt Hatun had seen him in person. He was tall and spare, with long delicate fingers that had clearly never seen battle. His olive-skinned face was thin, but still relatively smooth despite his forty-eight years. He wore a well-trimmed moustache that curved downward into a tiny grey-flecked beard. He might have been called handsome but for the jagged scar stretching down from his right temple to his jaw, and his unnerving eyes. Large and palest grey, they were cold and unblinking, like the eyes of a dead man.
Halil rose and bowed as Sitt Hatun entered. 'Welcome, sultana,' he said. His smile – thin lips stretched back over sharp teeth – made him look like a wolf at hunt. 'I am so glad that you arrived safely. Your servant can make herself comfortable in there.' He gestured to a side passage. Anna squeezed Sitt Hatun's hand and left. Halil turned to Isa. 'Isa, you may go,' he said, and Isa retreated quietly. Halil gestured for Sitt Hatun to be seated at the table. 'Some refreshments for you? You must be famished after your adventures.'
Sitt Hatun shook her head. She was nervous, and her stomach rebelled at the sight of food. 'Excellent,' Halil said. 'We have little time to spare anyway. The assassins will be looking for you, and you had best be gone before sunrise. Come, follow me.' He took a candle and led her down a side passage to a small room that was dominated by a large, canopied bed. He set the candle on a table beside the bed, and then untied his robe and allowed it to slip to the floor. He was entirely naked, thin and lacking in muscle. He gestured for her to undress, but Sitt Hatun did not move. 'You understand the particulars of our agreement?' Halil asked.
'I do,' Sitt Hatun said. She chided herself for her squeamishness. Any sacrifice was worth making if it meant that her child would be heir to the throne. She could then deal with Gulbehar as she saw fit. Keeping that in mind, Sitt Hatun turned her back to Halil and methodically undressed. When she was naked, she stepped carefully past Halil and blew out the candle. The room went black.
Sitt Hatun suppressed a shudder of disgust as she felt Halil's cold hand on her shoulder. 'Do what must be done,' she whispered.
MAY 1450: MANISA
Sitt Hatun reached Manisa at dusk, eight days after her night with Halil. Halil had entrusted her and Anna to a Greek eunuch named Erzinjan, who had taken them on a merchant ship down the Maritza river and across the Aegean. Their voyage had been blessed with perfect weather, but it was a tense journey. Sitt Hatun had no illusions as to her ability to elude the assassins. If Mehmed did not protect her in Manisa, then they would find her and kill her.
That is, if Mehmed did not kill her first. Sitt Hatun was not sure that Mehmed would protect her, even after she told him of Gulbehar's infidelity. The news might well drive him over the edge. After all, now that she had fled the harem she had no protection, no rights. All she had was the kumru kalp, sewn into the folds of her silk caftan. Sitt Hatun prayed to Allah that it would be enough.
Veiled to avoid prying eyes, Sitt Hatun and Anna made their way through the sun-baked streets of Manisa to the palace. Sitt Hatun led Anna around to the side, where a small door protected by eunuch guards gave servants access to the harem complex. She walked straight to one of the guards. 'We wish to present ourselves to the stewardess of the harem,' she told him. 'We desire to serve the sultan.'
The guard examined them both closely. 'Let me see your faces,' he said at last.
Sitt Hatun shook her head. 'We show our faces to no man, only to the stewardess.'
'Very well,' the guard grumbled. 'Wait here.'
Sitt Hatun and Anna stood in the shade of the palace wall as the sun inched across the sky and their patch of shade shrank to nothing. Finally, the stewardess appeared. She was an older woman, but still striking despite the faint wrinkles at the corner of her eyes and the grey in her long black hair. As stewardess of the harem, it was her task to recruit and train the women who would serve the sultan. 'These are the ones?' she asked the guard, who nodded. 'Come with me,' she told Sitt Hatun and Anna.
They followed her down a short passage and into a round room, where the stewardess stopped and turned to face them. 'This is as far as you go until I get a good look at you,' she said. 'Take off your veils.' Sitt Hatun removed her veil, and the stewardess gasped. 'Sultana! What are you doing here?'
'Quiet,' Sitt Hatun ordered as she replaced her veil. 'I do not wish my presence to be known by any but the sultan Mehmed. You will tell him that I have arrived yourself. But first, prepare a bath for me and my servant in a private room. And bring me new clothes. I wish to refresh myself before I see the sultan.'
'Yes, Sultana,' the stewardess said. She led Sitt Hatun and Anna to a large chamber with a steaming bath set into the floor. Sitt Hatun undressed and lowered herself into the water, where Anna gently washed away the grime from her travels. Sitt Hatun dressed with care, slipping into a revealing gold silk robe, which looked as if it could fall off at a mere thought, and a matching veil. Yet, when the stewardess of the harem led her into Mehmed's reading-room, he did not even glance up from the book he held before him. Only when she had removed her veil and settled on the floor across from him did Mehmed look at her. 'Why have you come here, wife?' he began abruptly. 'Is it at my father's bidding?'