Jenny White - The Sultan's seal

Later in the afternoon, the women move through the French doors and across the patio toward a shaded grove beyond sprays of jasmine and stands of roses for refreshments. Sybil finds herself walking beside Asma Sultan. Her hair is bound up in a turban of silk gauze edged in pearls and held in place by a diamond and ruby ornament made to resemble a bouquet of flowers. One side of the turban hangs free. The silk slips across her face when she moves.

“Tell me,” she asks Sybil as they walk through the garden, “what is life like for a woman in Europe?”

Having had little experience, Sybil tells her about Maitlin’s struggle to become a doctor.

Asma Sultan interrupts. “What about Paris?”

“I’ve never been to Paris, Your Highness,” Sybil admits reluctantly, stung by her lack of interest in Maitlin’s accomplishments. “But London is a fascinating place,” she ventures, launching into a somewhat imaginative account of life in London, where she has been only briefly, but has read about in Dickens and Trollope. She throws in the new underground railway she heard was recently completed.

Before long, Asma Sultan interrupts again. “My nephew went to Paris many years ago.” Then she falls unaccountably silent.

Sybil now realizes that Asma Sultan’s previous questions were mere preludes to this, the important matter. She also has the impression that Asma Sultan herself is surprised and disconcerted by her admission but, at the same time, compelled to speak it.

She inquires tentatively, “Did he enjoy his stay?”

“He died there.”

This, Sybil thinks, is the key to the matter.

“May your head remain healthy.”

They walk in the garden apart from the others.

“Ziya was a good man. I wished him to marry my daughter, Perihan, but as the sultan’s granddaughter, her hand was too valuable to waste on a relative. My husband thought it more useful to buy the loyalty of a minister. My husband is clever, a ship with sails that catch the slightest wind. He did well under my father until he helped depose him. Now my husband serves the present sultan.”

Sybil tries to hide her surprise at Asma Sultan’s admission. “But that’s normal, isn’t it? When there’s a change in government, people serve whoever is in charge of their country.”

“You do not understand, Sybil Hanoum. We are all slaves of Allah. But we are also slaves of the sultan. His will determines all our fates. The palace is not a place or a government, but a body that reaches every corner of the empire. My nephew could not escape it even in Paris. I am less than the tip of a small finger. Even though I myself am the daughter of a sultan.”

At the palace, Sybil has heard, loyalty counts for everything, kinship and friendship not at all, unless one is born of the same mother. Those closest to the sultan are in the most danger, as they are directly in the compass of his critical eye. She wonders whether this is true also for the relations of former sultans. Perhaps more so, she decides, since they might be competitors for the throne. The eldest male of the family inherits.

“I was there when my father was deposed by his own trusted ministers,” Asma Sultan continues softly. “They shamed him until he took his own life. The most powerful man in the world and he wasn’t allowed to see anyone except his women. Ordinary guards watched his every move, can you imagine? It was unspeakable.”

Shocked, Sybil can offer little comfort. “How dreadful, Your Highness.”

In a melancholy voice, Asma Sultan continues. “He loved my mother and he loved me because I was her daughter. He loved us most of all. We wiped the blood from his arms with our own veils.”

Sybil doesn’t know what to say. She had arrived in Istanbul just before the coup and remembers the frightening riots in the streets, the talk of troops and warships surrounding the palace.

“It destroyed my mother,” Asma Sultan whispers.

“My mother told me about her, Your Highness. She met her once,” Sybil says in a sympathetic voice.

Asma Sultan turns sharply. “When?”

“It must have been 1876, just before…” She leaves the thought unfinished. “Mother visited the harem in Dolmabahche Palace while my father had an audience with your father. I remember she said he had brought a pair of pheasants as a gift for the sultan.”

“My father had a passion for colorful animals,” Asma Sultan recalls fondly. “Parrots, white hens with black heads. He even had a collection of cows of many colors, beautiful animals.”

“My mother told me she thought your mother very beautiful.”

“She was a highborn Russian lady, educated in France. Her ship was captured on the high seas and she was sold to the palace. Her given name was Jacqueline, but in the harem, they called her Serché, “the Sparrow,” because she was so small. The other women were jealous of my father’s love for her.”

Sybil waits for Asma Sultan to continue the story of her mother, but she turns and walks on without another word. Still curious, Sybil follows her.

After a few moments, Asma Sultan turns to Sybil and says, “There is no loyalty except blood, Sybil Hanoum. One’s duty to one’s parents is paramount. You have done the right thing by staying at home with your father. The world is in your hands. When one marries, the flame extinguishes.”

Sybil is taken aback by this admonition. “But Your Highness, a woman’s duty to her parents doesn’t have to take the place of having a family and a home of her own.”

Asma Sultan turns her sharp eyes on Sybil.

“How is your father, Sybil Hanoum? Is he well?”

Sybil is startled by the sudden change in her tone. She is briefly tempted to say the truth, but instead responds diplomatically, “He is well, thanks be to Allah.”

“You use the name of Allah, yet you are Christian.”

Sybil has not expected a theological argument. “It is the same God, Your Highness.”

Asma Sultan sighs as if vexed with herself. “Don’t mind me. I’m only concerned for your health and that of your family.”

She leans toward Sybil, her veil falling across her mouth, and lowers her voice. “Perhaps you could deliver this message to your father.”

“A message?”

“Yes, that we are concerned for his health, which is so vital to the health of our empire. It’s hard for us to know what is happening outside these walls, and it is really not the concern of women. But I would like your father to know that I rely on him, as the representative of your mighty empire. You have helped us in the past, and you will help us again. Our road is hard, but we endure. Will you tell him this, in these words?”

Puzzled, Sybil responds, “Of course, Your Highness. I will tell him. And we thank you for your trust. We do what we can for freedom in the world.” Sybil winces at her own grandiose statements, but reminds herself that this is the way diplomats speak.

“There is no freedom, Sybil Hanoum,” Asma Sultan responds dryly, “only duty. We go where our betters command. Equally we do not go where they forbid us. Please deliver the message just as I have spoken it.”

Some of the other women are looking at them.

“May Allah protect you.” Asma Sultan turns and walks down the path.

Asma Sultan’s daughter, Perihan, appears beside Sybil and, giving her a long look, compliments her on her Turkish.

Dearest Maitlin,

My life has taken quite an exciting turn. Please do not scold me for taking this initiative, dear sister, you who have always known your own mind. I know that you would disapprove of my interest in these murders for fear that I might stir up a hornet’s nest and be myself stung. But, dear sister, those fears, while demonstrating sisterly love, are misplaced. After all, I am not a governess and I have a protector, which Hannah and Mary did not. And it is to help Kamil in his inquiries that I am pursuing this matter. I can’t imagine that you would behave any differently, given the opportunity to help solve not one murder, but perhaps two. Your life has been filled with such excitement. Do not begrudge me my own small portion. But, as you know, I am nothing if not careful and deliberate in my actions, so there is no need for you to fret.