The Reign of the Favored Women by Ann Chamberlin

The Reign of the Favored Women by Ann Chamberlin

Author:Ann Chamberlin [Chamberlin, Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: 16th Century, Action & Adventure, Fiction, Harem, historical, romance, Turkey
ISBN: 9780312865924
Google: IcSGHAAACAAJ
Amazon: 0312865929
Publisher: Forge
Published: 1998-04-14T23:00:00+00:00


XXXV

What Gul Ruh suspected after that I didn’t know. But I had begun to have suspicions of my own.

It was incredible. Such things happened only in the Thousand and One Nights. Gul Ruh, for whose child’s idealism life still had the qualities of a fairy tale, might leap to such conclusions easier than I. That I should begin to reach them, too, was one more point towards substantiation.

The matter was clinched, in my mind, at least, by the events of the very next morning.

“Abdullah, come here.”

From my master’s tone I caught the fact that we were on display now. From his eye I caught more than that: an almost desperate look that I must not fail him now.

“Master?” I replied, and made obeisance to the ground, a formality we never had recourse to when we were alone.

“Abdullah, these men would like a word with you.”

He turned, and turned me with him, to the room. The visitors—if they could be called that, for they had penetrated far into the house, to the very door of the mabein—were brazenly making a search of every alcove, pulling back curtains, opening blanket chests, and peering into large jugs. Their uniforms and swords told me at once who they were: from the palace, the Sultan’s personal bodyguard.

And my master and I were on the opposing side.

“You the head of the Grand Vizier’s harem?” One of them confronted me.

“By Allah’s most merciful favor,” I replied, bowing again.

“Tell me, khadim, how’s the honor of your harem?”

“By Allah, it’s my life if my master’s honor is not beyond reproach.”

“But might it not also be your life if you do not aid your master in concealing something behind the walls of your precious harem?”

“Sir, my honor and my master’s cannot allow you to continue in this vein. You will please retract such insinuation.”

The captain of the troop now came face-to-face with the mabein door. He looked at it hard as if he wished to see through it, his hand reached out to try the door, but in the end the sanctity of the place kept even him from trying it. He turned his piercing stare on me then and I met it with what I hoped was discretion as solid as the wood of the door.

“Very well,” the captain said. “I’ll take your word, khadim. But you should know that this is a very serious matter.”

“Wealth belonging to the Imperial coffers—to the Caliph of all the Faithful—has been lost,” my master explained quietly, with a quiet hand on my shoulder. “Lost in the business of the death of Joseph Nassey.”

“‘Stolen’ is more like it,” the captain said. “And if you are found to have had connection with this business, it will not go easy with you.”

My master replied: “Good man, I assure you and his graciousness the Sultan, once again I assure you that no crime has been committed at all. My agents sold the Jew’s goods exactly as I commanded them and every akçe was brought to the treasury.



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.