Free Tears of Pearl by TASHA ALEXANDER Page B

“But I much prefer you in the dark.”

6
    “Her Excellency cannot see you now.” The smile on Jemal’s face as he met me at the arched doorway that stood at the entrance to the harem at Topkap? was undoubtedly meant to irritate. “You’re too early.”
    “Which is precisely what I wanted,” I said, pulling down on the bottom of the jacket I wore, smoothing it over my fine wool corselet skirt. “I came now so as to have the opportunity to speak to you.”
    “I’m sure we have very little to say to each other.”
    “Tell me about your friendship with Ceyden.”
    “We were the most casual sort of acquaintances,” he said. “And that only because our positions forced us to cross paths regularly.”
    “Why, Jemal, must you make this difficult? I know that you were sent here to be kept away from her.”
    “I was sent here because the sultan felt my talents better suited to Topkap?.”
    “That’s not what Perestu told me.”
    “She does not have quite so much power as she likes to think,” he said. “It’s presumptuous to assume she’d even know what my mission is here.”
    “What is it?”
    “Confidential.”
    “And it has nothing to do with Ceyden?”
    “If it did, why would I still be here after her death?”
    “I’m sure I don’t know,” I said. “Perhaps you could enlighten me.”
    “I do not approve of what you are doing, Lady Emily. There is nothing to be gained. Ceyden is dead and cannot be helped.”
    “Should she have no justice?”
    “Sometimes justice brings only a worse pain.”
    “So we should seek solace in lies and half-truths instead?” I asked.
    “I cannot have you drawing attention to my mistress.”
    “Does she have something to hide?”
    “I suggested no such thing. I know only the risks of one’s actions being misinterpreted. Leave Bezime out of your game.”
    “This isn’t a game, Jemal,” I said. “How could solving Ceyden’s murder threaten her?”
    “Digging into any court controversy can threaten her. It’s not so long ago that the concubines of former sultans were drowned in the Bosphorus instead of being allowed a comfortable retirement.”
    “Abdül Hamit would never do such a thing to a woman he looked on once almost as a mother.”
    “But he stopped feeling that way for her, did he not? And why was that?”
    “I couldn’t begin to tell you.”
    He stood and began to pace in front of the doorway, the movement having a dizzying eff ect on me. “She is cut from all decisions, all events of importance. Is that not a precarious position?”
    “Not necessarily,” I said. “A lonely one, but not dangerous.”
    “She was closer to Ceyden than anyone else, raised her like a daughter. Groomed her to please the sultan.”
    “Only to have her efforts thwarted by Perestu.”
    “Precisely.”
    “But isn’t that typical court behavior? Are not all the concubines competing for favor? It’s hardly surprising that the valide sultan would refuse to aid the cause of the one woman who might have had the position she occupies. Perestu must know full well that the sultan could have named Bezime valide.”
    “I have said too much. It would be best for us all if you would cease your questions.”
    “Please—” A door in the corridor swung open, Bezime standing, arms crossed, on the other side.
    “Go, Jemal,” she said. “I will handle this.”
    The eunuch bowed deeply to her before disappearing. Bezime beckoned for me to come in, closing the door behind me with only the slightest click as the latch caught the edge of the frame.
    “Come,” she said. “I will take you to where it is safe to speak.”
    We wound our way through narrow corridors and series after series of connected rooms, until we were outside of the harem, in a courtyard. Then through an ornate gate, another courtyard, and into a tiled pavilion. She sat in the center of a low divan covered with buttery smooth crimson silk that ran the length of the wall and motioned for me to join her.