Sitt Hatun watched as Bayezid helped Selim to piece together the wall of Constantinople. They had only been playing for a few minutes, but already the miniature wall stretched for four feet across the floor of the room. 'Now we need a tower,' Bayezid said. Selim found the appropriate piece, and Bayezid took it and set it into place. 'Now a gate.'
After Bayezid set the gate into place, Selim took up one of the figurines – a Turkish bey on horseback – and placed it in the gate. He turned and gestured proudly. 'Look, anne!' he said. Selim always called her his anne, or mamma. 'Father!'
Sitt Hatun smiled. 'That is very good, Selim.'
There was a knock at the door, and Kacha entered through the secret passage. 'Excuse me, My Lady,' she said. 'But Gulbehar has awakened and is calling for her son.' Bayezid pouted at this and sat down, his arms folded across his chest.
'I don't want to go,' he said.
'You must,' Sitt Hatun told him. 'Your mother will be angry if you do not return soon. And if she learns that you are here…' Sitt Hatun did not need to finish. Bayezid understood that if his visits were discovered, he would never see Sitt Hatun or Selim again.
The boy frowned, but he rose and went to the secret passage. He stopped at the door. 'I am a prince,' he said. 'Why can't I choose where I live? Why can't I choose my mother?'
Sitt Hatun shook her head sadly. 'There are some things that even princes cannot choose,' she told Bayezid. 'Now go. Farewell, little prince.'
Kacha took Bayezid's hand and led him away. After a moment, Selim came over to Sitt Hatun and placed his hand on his mother's knee. 'What's wrong, mother?'
Sitt Hatun realized that there were tears in her eyes. She had hardened herself against such sentimentality, but Bayezid's words had moved her. The boy deserved better than Gulbehar for a mother. But how could Sitt Hatun play mother to this boy when he would have to die in order for Selim to take the throne? She knew that she should use Bayezid or send him away. Loving him was not an option.
Sitt Hatun wiped her eyes and lifted Selim on to her lap. 'Nothing is wrong, my prince,' she told him. 'Nothing at all.' Isa stood in the shadowy entrance to a narrow alley and watched as night fell on a busy street in Edirne. Across the street from him stood a row of houses and merchants' shops, crowded close together. In the centre, looking no different from any of the other dingy, stuccoed buildings, was the house where his family was kept prisoner. Isa had not seen his wife and two children for nearly a year, but tonight he would be with them again. And this time, he would take them with him, far away from this accursed place. He had only one task to complete first. Once the young prince Bayezid was dead, Isa and his family would be free.
The shadows deepened around Isa and the crowd thinned until only a few merchants remained, hurrying home down the dark street. The moon would not rise for several hours yet, and in his tight-fitting black clothes, Isa was nearly invisible. It was time. He turned his back on the house and slipped away down the alley. Keeping to the shadows, he made his way to the palace, where he stopped in an alleyway across from the outer wall. All around the palace there was a paved, torchlit space some twenty feet wide. At night the space was forbidden ground. Archers patrolled the walls, and anyone caught trespassing would be shot on sight. Isa would have to cross the open space unseen if he hoped to enter the palace.
From where he stood, he could see two guards talking on the wall above. He waited several minutes, but they did not move away. Isa drew his dagger and prised a stone loose from the wall next to him. He threw it far down the street to his left, and it landed with a loud crack and rolled clattering along the pavement. The guards turned to follow the sound, and Isa took the opportunity to dash across the open space. He flattened himself against the wall and waited, motionless. No alarm was raised. He had not been seen.
Isa crept along the wall and rounded a corner to the side that faced the river. He continued until he came to a rusted metal grate set low into the wall. The grate covered the mouth of a small sewage tunnel, some three feet across. He slipped on a pair of black leather gloves and then drew a pouch from his belt and carefully sprinkled a dark green powder around the edges of the grate where it joined with the stone of the tunnel. He took a leather water skin and splashed the powder with water. There was a hissing sound, and then noxious green smoke rose from the edges of the grate. A few minutes later the grate came loose in Isa's hands. He set it aside and crawled into the tunnel.
The bottom of the tunnel was covered with a slippery, foul-smelling layer of muck – the rotting refuse washed down the kitchen sewer. Isa ignored the smell, thinking of his family's freedom as he wormed his way through the filth. After a hundred feet the tunnel ended beneath another grate. He quietly shoved the grate aside and emerged into the empty, dimly lit harem kitchen. He replaced the grate, crossed the kitchen and entered a narrow spiral stairwell. At the top he emerged into a lightless corridor. He moved slowly down the corridor, feeling the walls with his hands. After a few feet he found a latch and pulled it. The wall swung open before him and he stepped into the reception room of Gulbehar's apartments. The room was dark, which meant that Gulbehar's household was probably asleep. That would make his job easier. With any luck, he could slip in and out without being noticed. Everyone would assume that the boy Bayezid had simply died in his sleep.
Isa slipped silently through the reception room and entered a long hallway that ran the length of the apartment. Halil had informed him that the entrance to Bayezid's quarters was at the far end of the hall. The boy's quarters consisted of three rooms: a reception room, a play room and his bedroom. Isa had almost reached the door to the reception room, when it opened and an odalisque stepped out. She screamed and turned to run, but Isa lunged for her and grabbed her by her long auburn hair. He yanked her towards him and slit her throat, cutting short her terrified screaming. Isa stepped over her and into the room. He shut the door behind him and locked it, then moved into the play room and again shut and locked the door. There were noises now coming from the hallway behind him. Isa would have to hurry.
He took a small vial from a pocket and kicked open the door to Bayezid's bedroom. The bed was empty. Isa quickly searched the room, but the boy was gone. In the next room, the doors shook as somebody tried to open them. Isa knelt and reached for one of the pouches that hung at his belt. Better to die here than to live and see his family killed for his failure.
Then he saw it: a thin crack running up the otherwise seamless wall on the far side of the room. It was the edge of a secret door, left slightly ajar. All was not lost. Isa slipped through the door and shut it firmly behind him. Sitt Hatun awoke from a troubled sleep to the sound of loud knocking. She jerked upright, suddenly wide awake. The knocking repeated itself – two knocks, a pause and then three knocks. It was the code that she had worked out with Bayezid and Kacha. She hurried to the door and opened it.
'Bayezid!' Sitt Hatun exclaimed. 'What are you doing here?' She stopped. Bayezid had not moved and his face was ghostly white. 'Are you well?' Sitt Hatun asked. 'What has happened?' Bayezid still did not move. Sitt Hatun crouched down and took the boy's head in her hands so that he was looking her in the eyes. 'Tell me what happened, Bayezid.'