On Rana’s return I was in the process of preparing for bed. She had been gone at least three hours and appeared quite subdued. ” I am now an odalisque” she sighed and then simply turned on her heel and went to her room closing the door behind her. It was not a happy announcement but I did detect a power behind her voice. I was sure that ‘Hamdi Bey’ was smitten with her and hoped that he had reigned in his conquest with a degree of respect.

I sat on my bed , surrounding myself with cushions and pondered the events of the day. The following day would be a sojourn to a new palace and a visiting opera company no less. Perhaps Rana and I could convince members of the company to help us with an escape plan. All sorts of wild ideas were running through my mind. Where was Gurel? Would he find us? I tried to sleep but could not and knocked furtively on Rana’s door.

She came to the door and spoke to me in a whisper as she rubbed her eyes. She had been crying and I have to say the tears in her eyes made her even more beautiful. “Come” she said ” I need someone to confide in this night”. The young servant girl assigned to her entered from the adjoining room. The girl carried a golden tea pot on a tray with two glass tea cups which she set down on the gilded coffee table in front of the sofa. Rana bade me be seated next to her and poured for the both of us. ” Here’s to my victory” she smiled in a tone of cynical charm.

We sat for many hours into the night as I listened with intent fascination to the story.of her life thus far. I told her all I could of Emine’s life from the fragmented pieces I had obtained from others in the harem. Things that I could not have learned from her diary. Of Emine’s arrival at Topkapi after the long sea voyage from Albania. Of her initial fear of the women of the Harem and of the Sultan who ruled them. Of her terrible nightmares and screams in the night for her dead mother.

In telling Rana of Emine’s journey I lived every moment of it myself. Yet I still knew that it was not of my world. How would Rana have taken it if I had told her that I was not of her time ? She had told me that night of her love for Gurol and of their troth to be together for all eternity. When she spoke his name she was lit from within. I too was there.

She showed me the note he had given her just before her carriage had entered the gate. The note had been delivered by pigeon and dropped at her feet as she alighted. In it was a detailed plan of how he planned to find her inside Yildiz palace.

It was strange indeed to be reading this love note . Even stranger because the content was written in a language completely unfamiliar to me. The fact that I was also speaking another language had not fully dawned on me until that very moment. I was as worthy as she and with that realisation came the acknowledgement of my jealousy.

In this note was also a poem which Gurol had written in his perfect script with flowing hand and impassioned thought. Oh that it were written for me.

As the stars reveal their true ambition To light up the skies as one
They are but lost in transit
And their work can be undone Unlike my love whose light will shine Beyond the night and through the dawn Oh shine for me eternal
And wherever you are bound There I shall be
Forever yours.

A novel By Renee Dallow.

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