“How did you come to your faith?”

“I have lots of time to myself here and fill most of my hours reading. One day I came upon a volume of Aquinas...” She sighed. “No, I must be honest with you. I asked for it—one in a long list of books I requested. One of our maids is a Christian, and I’ve heard her speak of the comfort it brings her—a comfort for which I have great need.”

“Why Aquinas?” I asked.

“She suggested his Summa Theologica to me. I devoured it and then moved on to every other of his works,” she said. “ ‘To convert somebody, go and take them by the hand and guide them.’ It was as if he spoke to me and took my hand in his own. And now, lacking the courage to refuse my sin, I have no option but to flee. Perhaps years of penance will compensate for my weakness.”

“You’re too hard on yourself,” I said.

“I will promise to aid your investigation in any way possible, but, please, please, Lady Emily—I implore that in exchange you help me find a way out of here.” We had reached the harem building, where a eunuch guard pulled open a door to let us in. “We can say nothing further of it now. Everything spoken in these walls runs through channels you can’t even imagine.”

“Shall we return outside?”

“Not with that man watching us,” she said. “Did you not see him in the trees?”

“No, I—”

The voice that interrupted me was not sharp, but startling regardless as it meandered, all soft bounces, through the stone corridor in which we stood.

“You would be in great danger were he not watching you.” The valide sultan, in a golden kaftan over pink-and-silver billowing Turkish trousers held in place with a diamond-encrusted girdle, slipped out from a doorway and took Roxelana’s arm, gripping with white knuckles. “It is time for you to go to the hamam. The sultan expects you tonight.”

Roxelana blushed crimson, the sides of her eyes crinkling as tears welled. “Yes, madam.”