SEPTEMBER 1449: EDIRNE
Halil stood behind a beaded curtain, his arms crossed and his fingers drumming impatiently as he waited for Isa to arrive. Halil had little time to himself, and any absence from the palace of more than an hour was sure to be noticed. He had already been waiting for Isa here, in the back rooms of the rug merchant Farzam's shop, for over fifteen minutes, and he could not wait much longer. To pass the time, he had been imagining devious means of punishing Isa for his tardiness — scalding his eyes with hot irons, drawing his fingernails, dipping his toes in acid. Halil was on the point of leaving and ordering one of these cruel tortures carried out when Isa stepped into the room across the curtain, slapping his clothes to remove the layers of dust that had settled on them during the long ride from Manisa. Isa looked tired and worn, but he did not look afraid. That was good: it meant that he must have succeeded. Halil stepped through the beaded curtain.
'You are late, and you have been followed,' Halil snapped. 'Mehmed's spies were seen riding behind you as you entered town. No doubt they are waiting outside even now. If they see us together, it will mean my head.'
'My apologies, Halil,' Isa replied. 'I had no idea that I was followed, else I would never have led the men here.'
'I am sure,' Halil muttered. 'But no matter. You will leave first, from the front, and I will use the hidden door. There is little danger that Mehmed's spies will see me. For your family's sake, I hope that they do not.' Isa's jaw clenched at this, and his eyes narrowed dangerously. 'I trust your journey was a success,' Halil continued. 'The Greek monk seems to have received his drug. My spies in Constantinople report that the empress-mother has taken ill.'
'Yes, I delivered the drug into his hands myself.'
'And what of Mehmed? How did he respond to my proposal?'
'Much as you anticipated: he refused your offer, but he kept the poison.'
'Very good,' Halil replied, stroking his beard. 'Mehmed will use the poison against his father soon enough. I will see to that. You have done well, Isa. Here is your reward.' Halil tossed Isa a small silk bag. He opened it and poured half a dozen small diamonds into his hand. 'I trust it is adequate?'
'Yes,' Isa said. 'It will do.'
'Good. You are free to go.'
Isa made no move to leave. 'And what of my family?' he demanded. 'You said that you would release them if I did what you asked of me.'
'And I will,' Halil said. 'I will release them when you have done all that I ask of you. For now, however, you may see them. You know the house where they are kept. The guards have been told to expect you. You will have one hour, and you will be searched before you enter.'
Isa left without another word. Halil was glad that he had found him. When Mehmed's oldest brother, Ahmet, had been poisoned, Halil had of course looked into the matter. After several years and many, many bribes, he had traced the source of the poison to Isa, then a servant in Mehmed's household, but not before Mehmed's other brother, Ala ed-Din, had also been killed. Shortly thereafter, Isa had disappeared. Halil had thought him dead until last year when, in search of a particularly rare poison, he had visited a caravanserai outside of Edirne. He was led into the tent of one of the merchants, a man who went by the name of Amir, and was surprised to find himself face to face with Isa. Isa had been living as the prosperous merchant Amir for years, always moving with the caravan, at first staying far from the major Turkish cities. But time had dulled his sense of fear, and for some years he had been following caravans to Edirne and even to Manisa, where Mehmed lived. No one recognized him, and Isa had grown more and more confident. He returned to his earlier calling as a dealer in potions and poisons. Three years ago he had felt secure enough to marry, and now he already had two children. Halil had taken Isa's family into his protection — meaning that if Isa did not do exactly as Halil said, they would be killed. Isa was a strong man. He had not even blinked when Halil told him that he knew that it was he who had poisoned Prince Ahmet, nor had he shown any sign of fear at threats of torture or death. He did, however, have a surprising weakness for his family. After Halil had them seized, Isa had proved most cooperative.
Yes, Halil was glad that he had found Isa. Thanks to his efforts, Murad would soon be dead and Mehmed on the throne. He would be much easier to control than his father, and if he were not, then there was always Sitt Hatun. Halil knew that the sultan's wife was a proud woman and resented her low status next to Mehmed's new kadin, Gulbehar. Halil had offered her a position of power and respect as mother of the reigning sultan. All he asked in return was that she lie with him so that the prince that was born to her, the prince who would be sultan after Halil eliminated Mehmed, would in fact be Halil's son. Sitt Hatun would have what she wanted, and Halil would be regent and the father of the empire. Sitt Hatun had not accepted his offer yet, but that, Halil hoped, was only a matter of time. Sitt Hatun sat beside the carp pool in the harem garden, daydreaming as her maidservant Cicek read aloud to her from a book of poetry. The morning air in the garden was warm and relaxing, scented with the perfume of thousands of flowers. Sitt Hatun trailed her hand in the water and felt the carp nibble gently at her fingers. She closed her eyes and exhaled. The months since Mehmed left for Manisa had been peaceful, despite Gulbehar's frequent slights. And lately, Sitt Hatun had hardly seen Gulbehar, who had kept to her apartments since the birth of her son, Bayezid.
At times like this, Sitt Hatun could almost convince herself that the harem was what the common people thought it to be: darus-saade, the place of happiness. Sitt Hatun, however, knew better. The harem was indeed a place of unparalleled luxury, but it was also rife with treachery and intrigue. It was a world apart, set aside from the rest of the palace grounds. It had its own gardens, its own mosque, its own kitchen and laundries. The harem even had its own people; except for the wives of the sultan and their offspring, none of the inhabitants of the harem was a Turk, for according to law, Muslims could not be made slaves. The women of the harem were sent by foreign rulers eager to establish good relations with the sultan, or else they were captured in war or taken as tribute from neighbouring peoples. They were Greek, Bosnian, Wallachian, Bulgarian, Russian, Polish, Italian and even French. The eunuchs were much the same; they were mostly taken as prisoners of war or rounded up in the devshirme, which exacted a tribute of children from all non-Muslims living within the Ottoman Empire.
Friendships rarely lasted amongst this mixed assortment of peoples, not with so many strange tongues and cultures lumped together, joined only by their desire to rise within the ranks of the harem, from slave-girl jariye to odalisque at the court of one of the sultan's favourites, to concubine and perhaps even to wife or kadin. Everybody spied on everybody, eager to commit small betrayals in return for power. Sitt Hatun's one friend, her ally in this pit of vipers, was her cousin and childhood companion, Cicek. After Cicek's parents died, she and Sitt Hatun had grown up together. They had become inseparable, and when Sitt Hatun had married Mehmed, Cicek had chosen to join her in the harem, even though it meant the loss of her freedom. Now, Cicek was Sitt Hatun's constant companion.
'My Lady.' It was Cicek. She had stopped reading and was gently shaking Sitt Hatun's shoulder. 'My Lady!' she whispered again. 'Yilan is in the garden.' Sitt Hatun opened her eyes and sat up. Yilan: the snake. It was what she and Cicek called Gulbehar, on account of her venomous tongue and the sinuous, swaying way she walked — like the undulating body of a charmed cobra. Sitt Hatun located her on the portico at the other end of the garden, her head held high as she stepped on to the lawn. Behind her came no less than ten odalisques, each dressed in red silk caftans embroidered with swirling patterns in gold — greater finery than Sitt Hatun herself could afford. But they looked drab beside Gulbehar, who was dressed like a princess from the Arabian Nights. She wore a tight, sleeveless silk robe of the deepest red, embroidered with gold and pearls. On her bare arms hung dozens of jewelled bracelets, and her long blonde hair was woven around a diadem of bright gold, set with diamonds. Certainly, Gulbehar did not lack for wealth; Mehmed showered her with gifts. But Sitt Hatun had never before seen her dressed so ostentatiously. She looked more like the wife of Sultan Murad than the kadin of a prince, even of the crown prince.