“I have laid out clothing in your rooms. The servants will see to you in the hamam. Do not disappoint me.”

If Bezime had intimidated me, Perestu terrified. Her face possessed the calm smoothness of marble as she watched Roxelana walk away from us, but something in her eyes—a shot of calculating manipulation—shook me, and a pervasive feeling of dislocation swam through as I considered the reality of what I’d just witnessed. Bezime might have had her share of power, could believe in hope, but nothing in the context of this world was better than a prison. A beautiful setting, servants, and fine clothing could not make up for freedom—real freedom. English society was full of restrictions, particularly for the fairer sex, but women were not forced into such reprehensible situations with no possibility of ever escaping. I recalled Bezime’s claim that here, there was hope. She was right in her way, but that hope extended only to women whose goals fit into the most narrow of passages.

I was well acquainted with the difficulties faced when one’s happiness depended upon living a life that did not fit into the standard view of what was acceptable. Roxelana’s plight distressed me, and while I wished for an elegant and simple solution to her problems, I knew there was no such thing. The only sensible thing would be to dismiss the ideas mucking up my head. I could not assist her in any meaningful way, not so long as I was working for the Crown. But then again, it was not right—not moral—to leave her an unwilling slave. There had to be a way, subtle but radical, to save her.

“I am not certain of the best way to offer my aid to you.” Perestu’s voice sliced through my thoughts. “I will, of course, instruct the concubines to speak openly to you, but can make no promises that they will be forthcoming.”

I did not much believe her. She was the valide sultan; surely the concubines would do whatever she told them. “If you could perhaps start by telling me everything possible about Ceyden,” I said. “Was she a favorite of the sultan’s?”