The Sultan's Daughter by Ann Chamberlin

Murad’s mother could see her only as a supplanter. Safiye, in one part of her mind, knew she should accept the overture with open arms. She had been waiting for just such a move, looking for the chance to make one of her own. It was not helpful to have the harem’s head woman so constantly at odds with her, suspecting every move she made.
    But the spectacle before her wiped all good intentions from Safiye’s mind. “Who is he?” she asked, and budged no more than the beating’s victim in response to Nur Banu’s pressure on her arm.
    “Hyacinth. You remember him, a khadim that belongs to Mihrimah Sultan. Ah, well. She is lax in her discipline, that daughter of our master.”
    Yes, now Safiye remembered the man. She hadn’t recognized the topography of his stripped, well-muscled chest—its valleys and high, flat plains—nor the tangle of mousy brown hair on his head. These features had always been hung with furs and capped with white linen before.
    And that mincing name! Hyacinth, for such a figure of a man! It was enough to confuse anyone.
    “But what’s he accused of doing? Deflowering Mihrimah’s virgins?” Safiye nearly laughed at the notion.
    “They found him with Selim’s current favorite.” The subject put bile in Nur Banu’s voice.
    “When I said ‘virgins,’ I only half jested. I’d believe this particular khadim not only capable but anxious to do so.”
    “Not with Selim’s girl ,” Nur Banu fairly spat her disgust. “With his boy. ”
    Now, Safiye made it her practice not to let anything surprise her. Surprise was the first sign of an irredeemable weakness.
    So she said: “I can’t imagine this sordid little affair can please our master the Sultan’s ears.” She looked at the older woman with a hard pity. To be unable to wean her man from his drink, let alone a boy ! “His heir a bugger as well as a drunk. Or...? Yes, perhaps it is better to keep quiet about it.”
    Nur Banu answered the barely concealed threat in Safiye’s words with a look such as a potter might give a vase that displeases and shames him just before he dashes it to the ground. The older woman restrained herself, however, and Safiye swallowed her own spittle into meekness.
    There was no reason, Safiye realized, why she couldn’t be standing here waiting her turn in the stocks rather than just observing. Her relationship with the harem’s first woman had disintegrated to the point where it seemed only a matter of time before Nur Banu decided this pleasure was worth incurring Murad’s wrath. Of course Prince Murad was the only male his mother had any control over anymore—this sordid affair with the boy was proof of that. Nur Banu would attack Murad’s beloved—and risk his wrath—only with the greatest caution. Still, restraint was best, Safiye decided. It was no use frightening off the game by making it too jumpy too soon.
    In spite of her prudent thoughts, Safiye couldn’t suppress her next comment: “I for one doubt he’s guilty.”
    She meant her words to more than defy authority. She timed them carefully to the quiet between two blows. They’d carry.
    “He says he’s not,” Nur Banu confirmed, settling her anger with dignity. “But they all say that.”
    “I believe him.” Safiye punctuated off the pulse again.
    “He says he only let the boy crawl into his bed for comfort after the rigors of my lord’s passion.”
    For a moment, Safiye imagined herself crawling into that bed. Though she would never confess to the need of such comfort, she felt the pleasure of that warmth, the silent dark, those enfolding arms.
    Nur Banu continued: “Hyacinth says he only let the lad cry on his shoulder. But again—they all would say that.”
    “By Allah, I believe him.”
    The eunuch in the stocks shifted his tawny mane, ever so slightly, to fix Safiye with a pair of icy, feral blue eyes flecked with green. And she, in return, ever so slightly dropped her veil. He’d recognize her when next they met. If the