“You should never be late when the valide sultan has summoned you.”

I was not quite late, but I thought it best to restrain myself from pointing this out. “Valide sultan? I thought Perestu was valide sultan?”

He turned to look at me. “She is. But here it is Bezime who matters. It is unfortunate she lost her official position.”

“Unfortunate, perhaps, but inevitable,” I said. “Every sultan has his own mother.”

“Abdül Hamit’s mother died when he was young. Both Perestu and Bezime cared for him when he was a boy. This so-called inevitability was in fact a matter of choice.”

“You speak very freely,” I said, shocked to hear a servant give opinions—particularly opinions about the royal household—to a stranger.

“I am a favorite of many in the court, Bezime included, and have nothing to fear, no reason to hold my tongue.” He stopped walking and faced me directly. “You are not used to educated slaves who wield their own power.”

The flash in his black eyes made me suspect he was trying to shock me. Instead of registering the slightest surprise, I squared my shoulders and straightened my back. “No, I’m not. We don’t have slaves of any sort in England. And I admire very much that you are educated.”

“Everyone in the harem is educated.”

“You mean the women?” I asked.

“Yes. Of course. You’ll not find more cultured ladies anywhere. You think the sultan would want to surround himself with ignorant fools?”

“Many men have done worse.” We were walking again, inside now, along a stone corridor that led through doorways above which hung passages painted in Arabic—I presumed from the Koran—gold paint on a green background. After passing through another outdoor courtyard, this one surrounded by buildings painted pink, we entered a small room whose every square inch was covered with tiles painted in blues and greens. “What is your name?” I asked as he paused to pull open a heavy wooden door, rich wood carved in a bold pattern of squares and rectangles.