Two Empresses Read online

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  After the whole of me was rose scented and sleek as silk, another servant came in to help me dress. I was given a pair of baggy white satin trousers that ballooned gracefully around my limbs and cinched in about my ankles, and a black satin caftan embroidered all over with silver flowers embellished with seed pearls and tiny crystals. I stepped obediently into silver slippers with those funny turned-back toes. A circlet of braided black and white veiling entwined with pearls was set upon my head and twin black and white veils flowed down my back past my knees. The tiring woman showed me how to draw the veil forward, to fasten it on the opposite side, to hide my face entirely below my eyes. I knew she was giving me instructions of some kind, but I couldn’t understand.

  She gave up with a sigh and left my veil to fall naturally down my back and motioned for me to follow her. I was taken to a long, narrow room lined with gilded divans, all covered in sumptuous, jewel-hued satins, with quilts and plump pillows. This was nothing like the dormitory at the convent, yet that was exactly what it was. Many of the divans were already occupied, but enough women were awake to come crowd around me and stare at my white skin and golden hair.

  But I only wished to sleep; exhaustion had driven all the fight out of me. I sank down gratefully onto the plum-colored divan that the servant had indicated was mine, laid my head down on the pillow, pulled up the covers, and closed my eyes. Sleep was my only refuge, my only escape. As I drifted off I prayed that when I woke up I would be back in my bed at La Trinité and that all this would prove to have been only a bad dream.

  CHAPTER 18

  I was left to sleep as long as I liked. When I awakened I was alone in the dormitory except for a servant who had been left to watch over me. As soon as she saw me stir she scurried out and came back with a big golden tray laden with strong bitter black tea, a strange kind of bread that was flat and firm with tiny oval seeds baked on top of it, honey and a variety of jams and preserves, crumbly white cheese, olives, melon slices, a flaky layered pastry baked with honey and nuts, and a creamy white custard. She wasn’t sure which I liked, so she had brought me many things to tempt my appetite.

  I looked around for a spoon, but there wasn’t one. The servant mimed using her fingers to raise phantom food to her mouth. It seemed like the sort of thing a person entirely without refinement would do, but I was hungry and that white custard looked so inviting.

  I eagerly scooped some up on two fingertips, expecting it to be sweet, but it had a strange sour taste, both bitter and bland, there wasn’t the slightest sweetness to it, and it burned my throat instead of cooling it on the way down. The servant girl pointed to the preserves and honey, miming that I should stir these into the deceptive custard. When I did it improved the taste considerably. I tried to ask her what it was called, but she didn’t understand. So I pointed to it and asked, “Sherbet?” and then “Rahat lokum?”—the only words for food I knew, though I knew very well it was neither of these. But she understood and shook her head. “Yourt,” she pronounced.

  After I finished eating and had bathed my hands and face, I was astonished to see two black men in long white robes and turbans carrying a trunk in. I recognized it at once; it was the special one that had held the beautiful pink ball gown, and everything that went with it, that I had intended to wear at my homecoming ball. I ran and knelt before the trunk. Someone had pried open the lock and the lid lifted easily. I reached inside and lovingly caressed the pink taffeta. How proud Papa and Mama would have been to see me in it, all grown-up, gowned and gracious as a proper French lady. I would have surely found a beau that night, maybe even my future husband.

  The black man from the night before swept in, wearing robes of crimson brocade this time, with a mantle of white peacock feathers studded with a rainbow of gemstone brilliants and a spray of white feathers on a mammoth sugarloaf turban so tall they almost grazed the ceiling. He was followed by two servant girls. He pointed to the trunk full of pink finery and they began carefully laying out each piece. He lingered in the doorway a moment, watching, then nodded, apparently satisfied, and left me to their care.

  They stared at each garment in wonder. The panniers that supported the voluminous skirt were completely foreign to them, as were the whalebone stays that cinched my waist in tight and pushed my bosom up high, and the heels like little stilts on the pink satin shoes.

  They undressed me and washed me with rosewater and looked me over carefully, making sure not a single hair had defied that dreadful, caustic paste. Then, in a lengthy process punctuated by much pantomiming and frustration, the three of us managed to get me dressed and to put up my hair in the French fashion, crowned with a lavish garnishment of pink ribbons, a wreath of pink silk roses, and a bevy of frothy ostrich plumes from palest to deepest pink, with a pair of long golden ringlets falling over my right shoulder.

  The women in this strange land seemed to have a heavy hand when it came to applying their face paint, but I would not let them go so far with me. I preferred to appear as I was, fresh and young, with just a light dusting of powder, a darkening of my far-too-fair brows, and a touch of rouge on my cheeks and mouth to enhance their natural rosiness. As I fastened the delicate gold filigree and pearl drops in my ears I lamented again the loss of the cross my parents had given me. Not only would it have matched the earrings, but it also would have served as a constant reminder of their love and given me the strength and courage to bear whatever I must, and to never stop hoping that I would find a way to get back home.

  I stood before the long mirror and stared at a me I had never seen before. The skirt was enormous, all pink flounces, rosettes, bows, and swaying gold tassels, jutting about three feet from my hips at either side and belling out over numerous taffeta petticoats. I fancied my silk-stockinged limbs beneath it were like the clapper of a huge bell. As I turned slowly before the mirror, I thought I looked like the most decadent pink birthday cake ever created.

  The black man returned. This time he smiled at me. He rubbed his hands together and his face and eyes radiated pure delight. He came to stand behind me at the mirror and took from inside his robe the pearl cross I thought I would never see again. I almost wept in gratitude as he fastened it around my neck. I met his eyes in the mirror. “Thank you,” I whispered, and hoped he understood even though we did not speak the same language.

  I did not know how to ask for it, but I wanted my talisman, the serpent charm Euphemia David had given me. I pointed to the cross at my throat and made a circling motion. Fortunately, he understood and produced it from within his robe. I could not wear it, the cord was missing, and it would not have complemented my gown, it was after all just a crude little thing, its only value springing from pure sentiment, so I wrapped it in my lace handkerchief and clutched it tightly in my hand.

  “Thank you,” I said again. He bowed his head in acknowledgment and then held out his hand to me and this time, after only the slightest hesitation, I took it as best I could with my panniered skirt standing between us.

  He led me out into a vast courtyard where several cages with gold bars were mounted on wheels to be pulled along by teams of strong, sturdy-footed white horses. Each cage contained a wild animal, captive and denied its natural God-given right to freedom, just like me. My escort walked me leisurely alongside them, pausing to inspect each, sometimes speaking a few words to the animals’ attendants, who were all clad in red shirts, bright yellow breeches, black leather boots, and round red felt hats with flat tops and a long, dangling black tassel. Each man had a jeweled dagger and a whip tucked in his black leather belt. Everyone bowed and treated the regal Negro with the utmost obedience and respect. He was clearly someone of great importance. I wondered if he might be a Nubian prince.

  There was a lion, a tiger, a zebra, a leopard, a gazelle, a crocodile, a hippopotamus, a great bear standing up on its hind legs, a mighty black ape, and a smaller shaggy-haired orange one that stuck its tongue out at me and tried to grasp the feathers in my hair through the golden
bars. I laughed and stuck my own tongue out as I dodged its grasping hand. In the next cage was an enormous brown and gold snake, its long body twisted into powerful bone-crushing coils, just like the one Euphemia David used to wear around her neck like a living, slithering shawl, only this one was much larger. I doubted she would have even been able to lift this great snake; it was the largest one I had ever seen.

  “Li Grande Zombi!” I cried—here was something familiar at last!—and impulsively reached through the bars to touch it, but I was quickly pulled back and delivered a stern admonishment.

  “It isn’t poisonous,” I pouted, but of course no one understood me.

  The cage at the end of the line was empty; the door at the back stood open wide and there were steps leading up to it. I understood then what was expected of me. Like victorious Romans’ conquered captives taken back to Rome, paraded in chains through the streets behind their chariots, I was to be put on display.

  I looked at the man standing next to me. Was he the king of this land of golden domes and veiled women? Was I, his lone pearl-skinned slave, the ultimate tribute to his power and vanity? He urged me toward the steps, gesturing for me to mount them and enter the gilded cage.

  Reluctantly, I obeyed. I had no other choice. Disobedience might mean death, and that was not the escape I was looking for; if I was ever to go home again I had to stay alive and endure whatever I must.

  My skirt was so wide I had to squeeze in sideways. The door instantly swung shut behind me and I heard the rattle of chains and a large lock snap shut. I turned around to look. They were all gold, just like the bars of the cage, brightly polished and shining like the sun, but a gilt cage is still a cage; precious metals do not make it any less a prison.

  I watched my red-and-yellow-clad keeper adjusting the chains and locks; I understood this was all part of the show. The whip and dagger in his belt suddenly angered me, as though he thought I might need taming like a tiger or a lion.

  “What are you going to do if I don’t obey, beat me or stab me?” I demanded, though he just shook his head and shrugged his shoulders as a puzzled frown furrowed his brow.

  I caught an amused smile flitting across the face of the richly robed Negro as he stood studying me through the golden bars. I had the strongest suspicion then that he had understood me, my actual words, not just my indignation.

  “You do understand French!” I rounded on him accusingly.

  “I never said I did not, mademoiselle,” he answered me in fluent, though oddly accented, French.

  “Who are you, and where am I, and what am I doing here? What do you want with me?” I stamped my foot and demanded furiously. “I want to go home now! I am Aimee Dubucq de Rivery; my father owns a plantation in Martinique; sugar and cocoa have made him very rich; he will pay you well if . . .”

  My words trailed off and tears pricked at my eyes. He was already shaking his head.

  “This is the first, and last, conversation we shall have in your language, mademoiselle,” he said in a firm voice that brooked no argument. “You must forget it and learn ours. Your father’s money is of no interest to us; we are only interested in you. . . .”

  I gasped and stepped back, instinctively wrapping my arms around my breasts. Though I was fully dressed and he had already seen me naked and probed my most intimate parts with his fingers, the way he spoke those words and looked at me made me feel very vulnerable and bare indeed.

  “You asked who I am and where you are,” he continued. “You are in Constantinople, within the walls of Topkapi Palace, in the harem of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. I am the Kizlar Aga, the Chief Black Eunuch of God’s Shadow on Earth, Sultan Abdul Hamid I. I walk but one step behind him, after him I am the most powerful man in this palace, and I rule here; in the harem my word is law. My name is Lâle. Your new name is yet to be decided, but you are no longer Aimee. If you please the Sultan tonight your education begins tomorrow.”

  He started to walk away from me, but I was not ready to end the conversation.

  “And if I don’t?” I challenged his bejeweled back. “If I don’t please your sultan, what then?”

  “You will be sewn in a sack with rocks at your feet and thrown into the Bosphorus to drown,” Lâle answered matter-of-factly without turning around. “The Sultan would never give such a rare and splendid jewel to another man. A woman with skin like a pearl, eyes the color of perfect sapphires, and hair like gold, you are worth more than all the sugar and cocoa your father could grow even if he lived one hundred years; there has never been anyone like you here. I have no doubt that Abdul Hamid will drop his handkerchief for you.” At my puzzled look he explained, “When the Sultan drops his handkerchief for a woman that is the signal that he has chosen her for the night. Please him or die, mademoiselle; that is the one choice you do have. When you are presented to the Sultan I suggest you bow and kiss the hem of his robe.”

  He left me then, alone in my gilded cage, to contemplate my fate and whether or not I had a future.

  * * *

  Before long, the wheels beneath my feet began to turn. As the procession of cages lurched slowly along, I curled my hands around the gilded bars and willed myself not to cry. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing my tears. I listened to the cries of the animals in the cages before me; they were angry and frightened, just like me. They were prisoners too, destined to die, for sport or their skins, or to spend the rest of their lives behind bars being stared at; it all depended on the Sultan’s pleasure. I already hated him.

  We were taken into another courtyard where a large dais had been erected. Hundreds of jewel-colored cushions had been arranged around it where richly appareled and bejeweled beauties with lavish veiled headdresses and heavily painted faces lolled. Upon the dais sat three thrones, occupied by three men in opulent embroidered robes and jeweled turbans. The first was quite old, the second but a few years older than myself, and the third a beardless boy of about twelve or so. The Sultan and his heirs, I assumed.

  As my cage was rolled in I was struck by how bored everyone seemed. None of the women rose from their indolent poses to take a closer look at this zoo on wheels; they seemed more interested in their long jeweled pipes and the trays of sweetmeats and gilded cups of coffee and sherbet servants were passing amongst them. The men upon their thrones seemed equally indifferent.

  When I first sighted the Sultan he was yawning. The hand that rose to cover his mouth wore great glittering rings on every finger and there was an emerald the size of my fist holding a spray of white feathers on his tall gold-and-silver-striped turban. His silken robe was so densely embroidered in silver and gold I could not tell the color beneath it.

  After a lengthy pause the gilded wheels began to turn again, all the animals exited, but my cage, the last in line, was driven to a more prominent position, directly opposite the Sultan’s throne.

  Perhaps it will seem vain of me to say it, but I woke them all up. The Sultan sat up straight on his throne and his eyes opened wide. He sat forward, rubbing his hands against his thighs, smiling and drinking me in with his eyes. Beside him, the elder prince fumbled in the folds of his lavender and silver robes and withdrew a pair of gold-framed spectacles and put them on, craning his neck forward to get a better look at me. The younger prince’s mouth hung open in a perfect O of astonishment; I saw him gesture to one of his attendants and mime the shape of my panniers, sticking out from my hips, presumably asking if I was shaped like that underneath. All the ladies sat upright on their cushions and took note, of me and the Sultan’s reaction; even the ones who had seen me before were seeing me now with new eyes, tinted, I feared, by the malicious green cast of jealousy.

  Rubbing his hands and smiling broadly, showing a set of perfect ivory teeth, Lâle came around to the back of my cage. He ordered the attendant to unlock the door and let down the steps. He beckoned to me and held out his hand to help me descend. My panniers were so wide he could barely grasp my fingertips as he walked me around to stand in
front of the cage.

  The ladies were now pointing and whispering about me and my—to them—peculiar mode of dress, and the way I wore my hair in a mound of fussily bedecked and befeathered curls. Some of them made gestures about their hips, and I knew they were talking about the panniers that made my skirt stand out. They had never seen such a thing before.

  “Proceed!” Lâle whispered to me in French, and I felt the slight pressure of his hand on my back, urging me forward.

  Nervously, I bobbed a hurried little curtsy that was far from worthy of Versailles or any sovereign; if Mother Angélique had seen me she would have laid my palm open even though I was standing before a heathen potentate. My curtsy was instinctive; it seemed the proper and polite thing to do. I was after all in the presence of royalty. But even as I did it a little voice in the back of my head was raging, how dare I even think about being courteous to this barbarian who was holding me captive, enslaved, against my will.

  The Sultan’s hand rose, beckoning me forward. I took a few steps, then faltered uncertainly. The Sultan smiled encouragingly and his fingers moved again, urging me onward. He was smiling and his eyes were shining, and that made me very, very frightened. I had a feeling that if he had been frowning my fear would have been lesser. Lâle was at my back again, giving me another little push. “Go!” he hissed.

  When I was only a few feet away from the Sultan he reached inside his gilt-encrusted robe and drew out a white silk handkerchief edged in gold. I watched with mounting dread as he held it up high, for all to see, and then he let it fall. I felt only horror as I watched it flutter to the floor.

  “Bow! Kiss the hem of his robe!” Lâle whispered urgently behind my back. “Show your appreciation, you stupid girl! He likes you; he has chosen you!”

  “No!” I shook my head adamantly. “No! I will not!” I whirled around defiantly and ran from the courtyard as fast as my feet could carry me, bolting through the nearest door, though I had no idea where it led, taffeta skirts rustling like a flock of frightened birds and my pink satin high heels clacking a loud, desperate rhythm on the polished floors.