Harem Read Free

She clutched at the hem of her kaftan, bunching the material into a ball in her fist.
    'Speak up! I can't help you if you don't tell me what the problem is!'
    'I'm pregnant,' Meylissa said.
    Hürrem thought she had misheard. 'That doesn't make any sense,' she said.
    'It's true. I missed my bleed.'
    Hürrem laughed. Pregnant? In this lady's prison? 'Meylissa, it's all right, it happens. Sometimes they come late, sometimes they don't come at all. It doesn't mean you're pregnant.'
    Meylissa shook her head. 'No, it's true.'
    'You need a man to make you pregnant!'
    Meylissa looked over Hürrem's shoulder to make sure no one could overhear. Until that moment Hürrem had thought herself the more worldly one, but in that unguarded moment her little Jewess was unmasked and she saw a knowing and a cunning in her she had missed until now. 'The Kapi Aga,' Meylissa whispered.
    The Kapi Aga! The Captain of the Guards, the Chief White Eunuch! Hürrem's jaw fell open in astonishment. Although he was in charge of the Harem Guard he was supposed never to be alone with any of the girls as he was not rasé - a complete eunuch - like the Negroes. She had heard that most of the white eunuchs had only been partly castrated, their testicles had been tied or crushed, like young lambs. Was it really possible …?
    'But he's a eunuch,' she said.
    'Of course he's a eunuch! Do you think I would have fucked a whole man? In here?'
    Hürrem was stunned. Not only at the word - prim little Meylissa! - but at her own ignorance. While she had been wrestling with the new language, thinking herself so superior to this market meat, as the Kiaya called her, this farmer's girl had already found a way to get herself bedded.
    Well, at least I am not pregnant, she thought.
    'But if he's a eunuch …'
    'They say sometimes a man can … well, regenerate. Even the black ones, they check them every year to make sure it hasn't grown back.'
    'Nonsense! When you geld a horse, it stays gelded!'
    'But the white eunuchs, you know, they are not rasé - their things are not shaved off, like with the Nubians.'
    Meylissa was calmer now; talking had helped her. Hürrem stared at her, appalled. Pregnant!
    'But where did you … do it?'
    Meylissa continued in a whisper. 'There's a courtyard at the northern end of the palace. It's surrounded by high walls and shaded with plane trees. There's a door in the wall but it's always locked and there's never a guard.'
    'What were you doing there?'
    'I was learning my Qur'an, as we were instructed. He must have seen me, perhaps from the northern tower. I heard a key in the lock. I was going to run away but …'
    Hürrem cocked her head, waiting for this 'but'; but Meylissa only shrugged. 'He said I was the most beautiful woman in the whole harem. He said he would help me catch the Sultan's eye.'
    'How many times did this happen?'
    'Just once. Perhaps twice.' A breath. 'Six times.'
    'Six times! Do you know what they would have done if they had caught you?'
    'But they have caught me. Haven't they?'
    Hürrem pondered this, wondered what she would have done if it had been her sitting in the shaded garden reading the Qur'an. Even mortal danger could be tempting besides the stifling boredom of this dingy palace. And the daily steam baths and massages they made her take had stirred something inside her. Indolence and pampering worked on the body and soul like an aphrodisiac. It was torment, for there was no man to take away the ache.
    'What was it like?' Hürrem asked her.
    'What was it like? What does it matter what it was like? They are going to kill me! They will tie me in a sack and throw me in the Bosphorus!'
    'I'll help you,' Hürrem said.
    'How? What can you do?'
    'I'll think of something. You'll see.'
     
     
     

Chapter 4
     
    The room was as he had remembered it. For the first time since he had entered Stamboul in triumph three days before, Suleiman felt that he had come home. He threw himself on the wall couch. As he flung aside his silk