Harem Read Free Page B

now.'
    Gülbehar brought the food herself; tiny squares of lamb cooked in aromatic herbs, pieces of chicken baked over a slow fire, eggplants stuffed with rice. Afterwards there were figs in sour cream and sherbet from a cold gold goblet. Silent pages refilled their cups and bowls.
    'What is the talk around the Harem?' Suleiman asked her. It always amused him to hear the gossip.
    'They talk of you as a great hero,' Gülbehar said. 'When the news came that you had conquered Rhodes, everyone said you would be remembered by history as another Fatih, a great conqueror. Some say you are destined to be the greatest of all the Sultans.'
    'The price of such glory was very high. We lost many men.'
    'Our army will soon be strong again.'
    The remark irritated him. What did she know of armies? 'It was a terrible battle. If it were for a woman's ears, I could tell you things …' He dipped his fingers into a silver bowl of scented rosewater. A page appeared instantly to dry them.
    'You must not think about that anymore.'
    'By day it is easy not to remember. But at night, in the dark, it is harder not to hear the screams.'
    He waited, but Gülbehar did not encourage him further. How can I tell her? I have to tell someone. Or perhaps this is just another burden I must shoulder alone. He looked up at Gülbehar and smiled. How wonderful of God to make such a thing as blue eyes. He let his gaze fall to the shadow of her breasts beneath the silk chemise.
    'When you were away,' she said, 'I would take out your poems and read them. It always made me feel close to you again.'
     
    ***
     
    After so long with only hard things - the hilt of a sword, the saddle of a horse - it was a glory to again touch something soft. His hands clutched at Gülbehar's body so that several times she squealed with pain and he remembered himself and drew his hand away. But the softness of her belly and her thighs! He spread her legs apart and she wrapped them around his hips. He lost himself in his pleasure, chased away the memory of freezing rain with an arm protruding like a claw form the mud, the tower of Saint Michael emerging from the clouds and smoke. Was it the smell of blood or the taste of near-defeat that haunted him like this? Gülbehar whispered soft words to him and he pushed inside her and with that one urgent movement he felt his body spasm, the bitterness pouring from him.
    Like a flood, like a river.
    As the roaring of the blood subsided, images tumbled in his brain, future and past; Gülbehar with another son if God wills; the smell of that reeking moat at Rhodes; the executioner's sword glinting in the lamplight as it hung over Piri Pasha's head. Mustapha's sleeping face became his own, and then his father's, a monster with its beard soaking in blood as he ate his own children. He groaned aloud and fell sideways, heard Gülbehar whispering soothing endearments to try and calm him. Her arms and legs snaked around him.
    Then nothing.
    When he woke there was only the silence of the Harem, the slaves standing mute at the foot of the bed. A single candle burned in the dark. Gülbehar was asleep beside him, still and silent in her sleep as she always was.
    This is my Harem, forbidden to all men but me. I have my favourite asleep under my arm, these are my poems in the niches of the walls where Gülbehar keeps the manuscripts of my poetry, each a secret part of me enshrined in the rich language of the Persian. Even within the protocols of the Harem, I have kept these rooms like a sanctuary.
    And yet I feel so empty.
    She thinks she knows me but she does not. Even my poems are form and style, pretty words, but not truly me. There is no one I can talk to openly except Ibrahim but even with him I must play a role. He would make a better Sultan than ever I would and we both know it.
    I have everything but it is not enough. When a man is alone in Paradise it is just the same as being alone in Hell.
     
     
     

Chapter 5
     
    Hürrem knew that she had been