Chapter Nineteen #2
“I had a very persistent teacher on the voyage. I think he hoped I would end up here, and so he drilled me on the heirarchy of the palace. I don’t usually forget what I learn, even when it’s learned under duress.”
“Did he also teach you the heirarchy of the harem?” Haji asked.
“If you mean the caste system, in which certain women stand higher up the ladder than others, yes.”
“Tell me.”
“I’d rather not,” she replied with distaste. “It’s degrading, if you ask me, the ways of aspiring to a higher caste—”
“Tell me,” he repeated stubbornly.
Chantelle gritted her teeth. “Very well. You have the concubines, or odalisques, on the bottom of the ladder, those women who have not caught their lord’s notice. On the next rung you have the gozde, a woman who has caught his notice but hasn’t been called to—” She blushed here, unable to finish.
“Summoned to his presence yet?” Haji suggested.
“Yes, an admirable way to put it,” Chantelle said in relief. “Next up the rung are the ikbals, those women who have been ‘summoned to his presence,’ past and present favorites. And at the top of the ladder are the kadines, his official wives.”
“And which do you want to be?”
“None of the above,” she stated emphatically.
Haji laughed, the first time she’d heard him do so. “You are already gozde, but not for long, I think. However, you will find that the caste system in Jamil Reshid’s harem is quite different from what you were expecting, inasmuch as the first two lower orders have long since been eliminated.”
Chantelle’s mouth dropped open, and in her surprise, she didn’t quibble words. “Do you mean he beds them all?”
Haji nodded. “Some only a few times a year, some once or twice a month, but none are neglected indefinitely. He has his favorites, of course, whom he summons more often, but it is his wives he favors most.”
Chantelle was frowning when she commented, “Then he can’t possess that many women.”
Haji smiled at her reasoning. “You bring the total to forty-eight, Shahar. True, it is not very much. His father possessed more than two hundred.”
Not very much? Good God! Forty-seven women, and he had bedded them all. Talk about a rutting beast. But she was one woman who was not going to aspire to his bed.
“How do I go about getting myself out of his notice?” she dared to ask.
Now Haji was frowning again. “You do not. You are here to please him, and when you are finally summoned, you will strive with all you possess to do just that. But it will not be soon. You have much to learn first about the ways of the harem, the ways of a man. It will take many weeks, even though you appear to be a quick learner.”
Strive to please that barbarian? Ha! But was that all the reprieve she was to have? No; if many weeks passed, the Dey might forget about her, and it would be up to her to make sure he wasn’t reminded of her presence.
Through yet another door they reached a large open court of white marble with a bubbling fountain in its center.
Surrounding it were dozens and dozens of tiny apartments, rising three stories high, with wooden balconies running around all sides.
Lights glowed from many of the rooms, spilling out into the marbled court.
The doorways were hung with material, most open at the moment like curtains, to let in any wandering breeze.
There were dozens of women here, some standing out on the balconies, the sound of many more inside the apartments.
One detached herself from a doorway on the ground floor and came forward to meet them, bowing low to Haji Agha.
Chantelle’s first thought was that she was much too old for Jamil Reshid, though beneath her high turban was a face that still held much beauty. His mother possibly?
Haji introduced her as Lalla Safiye, mistress of this court, where the majority of the women lived.
Chantelle later learned that Lady Safiye had been an ikbal of Jamil’s father and had chosen to remain in the harem upon his death, rather than find a husband at her age or go to the Palace of Tears, a term taken from Istanbul for the house of the widows of a deceased ruler.
Haji left her with Safiye, whose Turkish was much too rapid for Chantelle to understand, but fortunately, she spoke a passable French as well. Chantelle followed her up three flights of wooden stairs to the top floor, where Safiye held open the curtain on the first door they came to.
“You will stay on this floor until you become an ikbal,” Safiye told her. “Then I will move you down with the others. There would be too much grumbling if I let you join them now, you understand.”
The “others” apparently occupied the lower two floors. The top floor was dark and deserted. Across the court and on each of the other two sides, more and more women came out of their cubicles to stare up at the newcomer.
“Here is just fine,” Chantelle said quickly, wanting to retreat from so much avid curiosity.
She stepped into the small room, where a single lantern burned next to a tray of food. So she had been expected.
“You knew I was coming?”
“Of course. There is nothing that happens in the palace that we do not learn of very quickly. When Jamil sent word to Haji Agha that you alone of the three had been chosen, another eunuch rushed to tell his mistress, who is Jamil’s third favorite, and she told Lalla Rahine, who sent the word on to me so that I could have a room prepared for you. ”
“How nice.”
Safiye seemed not to notice the sarcasm. “In my day,” she continued, “this court was used only for ikbals no longer in favor. There was a dormitory for the odalisques and another small court for the gozdes, but they have been deserted since Jamil came to power.”
“Yes, I’ve already heard how he favors all of his women at one time or another.”
Safiye did not let her sarcasm pass this time. Chantelle’s upper arm was gripped quite painfully, and the older woman’s face pressed close, her expression severely disapproving.
“Do not make the mistake of thinking your impertinence will be allowed here. And do not hold in contempt what you do not understand. Jamil’s women are the luckiest women in the empire.
They do not know what it is like to live year after endless year without the love of a man, to die a virgin, never knowing a man’s gentle touch.
But other women do know. It happens often in this country.
It happened in his father’s harem, where more than a hundred women never even reached the rank of gozde. ”
I should be so lucky, Chantelle thought, but she said instead in a coldly controlled tone, “You can let go of me, Lalla Safiye.”
Ordinarily, Safiye would have slapped her to the floor for what amounted to an order, and said so haughtily, too.
But this was the first girl Jamil had purchased for himself in several years.
That in itself suggested Shahar was going far, and Safiye was wise enough not to make an enemy of a future favorite.
She let go, but compromised by saying, “I hope you understand, Shahar, because your life here will not be pleasant if you do not learn quickly what is tolerated and what is not. We have ways of correcting unacceptable behavior, so you cannot say you weren’t warned.
Now, tomorrow Lalla Rahine will come to look you over.
I suggest you make friends with her, for as the most powerful woman in the harem, she can do much for or against you. ”
“Is she the Dey’s first wife?”
“His mother.”
Good Lord, he had a mother after all. Chantelle had somehow thought Jamil Reshid had been spawned by the devil without any help from the gentler sex.