The Kadin - Bertrice Small [166]
The sobbing and tearing of garments that followed touched her.
She could not have left her dearest friends, Firousi and Sarina, without telling them the truth. Like her, they were old now, and allowing them to mourn with breaking hearts might have shortened their lives. She had told them the truth about Prince Karim several years before, and on the day of her “death” they received a message that read: “Pay no heed to the gossips of the marketplace. For the sake of peace, I have chosen to follow in Karim’s footsteps.” A secret visit from Ruth had confirmed the message. She brought with her a parting gift for them from Cyra. Even now, as it had always been, they were united.
Gazing at the things that were hers, Cyra moved through her apartment a final time. She had spent many years collecting her furnishings and decorating her home. Tenderly she ran her hand across a rosewood chest inlaid in mother-of-pearl that Selim had brought her from Egypt The valideh wondered if Khurrem would attempt to claim the Garden Court for her own. She would probably try, but as besotted as Suleiman might be by his favorite, Cyra knew he would never allow her to touch his mother’s things. The Garden Court would be closed and sealed.
In a way, it was a pity. Never again would a slipper tred softly across the thick carpets, or a hand place a taper to the lovely old lamps. No longer would the now-silent rooms gather laughter and secrets to its walls.
For a moment anger welled in Cyra Hafise. Why should she be forced in her old age from the place and people she loved? This was her home. She had fought for it, and it was hers by right! Because her son was weak-willed in his personal relationships, she must leave him, her grandchildren, her country, and all else she held dear to return to Allah knew what in the dark land of her birth. If only she had believed Marian’s warning about Khurrem those many years ago—but no, if it had not been Khurrem, it would have been someone else.
She must put her old life behind her and reach eagerly for the new one. She was leaving Suleiman and his family; but Charles Leslie and other grandchildren awaited her in Scotland. At this moment Khurrem believed she had won the battle. My only regret, thought Cyra wryly, is that she will never know that the victory was really mine!
Dawn was beginning to pull at the shade of night when a small, overgrown gate to the valideh’s private park was opened. Three old women dressed in the black feridje and yasmak of the poor emerged and, clutching their bundles, walked out into the city. As light began to fill the eastern skies, they reached the docks and boarded a vessel flying the ensign of a foreign country. The gangplank was raised, the sails hoisted, and slowly the ship began to pull away from the shore.
In the Yeni Serai, Suleiman stood in the shore kiosk and watched as the ship sailed by him, its white sails catching the colors of the dawn. It carried his mother out of Constantinople and back to her cold, northern land.
From the minaret of the Great Mosque came the call of a muezzin. “Come to prayer. Come to prayer. The sultan valideh Hafise is dead. Come to prayer.”
Falling to his knees, the sultan of the greatest empire of its time wept.
PART V
Janet
1533–1542
40
IT WAS STILL DARE when the ship entered the Firth of Forth, and Janet Leslie, standing on the deck, smelled for the first time in almost forty years the damp land smells of earth, sea and heather that to her meant Scotland. Shivering, she gathered her sable-lined cloak about her and peered intently into the darkness. The small lump to her right would be the Isle of May. Ahead was Leith and the end of her journey. No, not the end for there was still the long overland trip to Glenkirk.
What is the matter with me, she thought impatiently. I am frightened to death of this new life. Yet, when I was stolen from my family and