Desert Rake

Suggestions that bonnets might be replaced with sunhats, that corsets need not be laced quite so tight, and that the weather was hot enough to dispense with the lightest of pelisses outside, were met with a disapproving sniff. ‘You are an English lady, my lady,’ Gascoyne would pronounce. ‘And I know what is due to one of my ladies, whatever heathen customs might prevail.’

Caroline had given up explaining that Italy and Malta were far from heathen, and knew she faced an impossible task in convincing the dresser that Constantinople might be different from what they were used to, but its inhabitants were God-fearing, each in their own way, and that it could be considered as sophisticated and highly developed as London. More so in some ways, if what she had read about the baths was true. Caroline was looking forward to trying out a hammam.

With a characteristic sniff Gascoyne shed her gloves, bonnet and pelisse, placed them neatly on one chair and sat, bolt upright, on the edge of another. Even that appeared to strike her as frivolous idleness, for she drew a portmanteau towards her and began lifting out underwear and sorting it onto the camphor wood chest next to the chair.

‘What happens now, my lady, if I may be so bold as to enquire?’

‘We rest here at the Embassy, and one of the secretaries will send a request to the Sublime Porte—the palace—for us to be granted a firman which will allow us to travel. Then I can find a suitable dragoman and porters, and buy pack animals, horses and supplies. Then we set out for Anatolia.’

‘Where’s that, my lady?’ Gascoyne frowned at a minute mark on a camisole and placed it to one side. ‘I thought we were arrived, now we’re in Turkey.’

‘It is part of Turkey—the land to the east.’ Caroline rolled over onto her stomach and propped her chin on her hands. ‘It is unchanged for centuries, and there are many beautiful natural features and fascinating archaeological treasures that are hardly known about. This book—’ She pulled over her bulging reticule and dug out the volume she had been carrying around since leaving England. ‘This book tells all about what has been discovered so far. It is by the best-known explorer of the area—Mr Fenton. He writes so compellingly.’

Gascoyne looked down her long nose at the proffered volume. ‘I’m sure I wouldn’t understand it, my lady. It doesn’t sound very suitable for English ladies either. How many carriage dresses do you think I should pack? And what about evening wear? Full dress, or only demi?’

‘Neither!’ Caroline rolled off the bed and straightened her gown at the sound of a knock on the door. ‘Come in. Oh, thank you; will you also send bathwater to my dresser’s room, please?’

The housekeeper bowed, and supervised the setting out of a cold collation, while menservants struggled in with a bathtub and ewers of hot water. Disappointingly it seemed that the Embassy did not have its own hammam.

‘No evening gowns, my lady?’

‘No. I shall take two gowns, and otherwise all those riding habits I had made.’ Caroline bit her lip as a thought struck her. ‘Provided I can find a lady’s side-saddle out here. If I cannot, then I shall just have to resort to breeches and a long coat over. It can’t be so difficult to ride astride, can it? Men do it all the time.’

‘Astride? In breeches? But, my lady, that is enough to ruin your reputation!’

‘Amongst whom?’ Caroline enquired tartly. ‘Anatolian shepherds?’

‘But are we not taking a travelling carriage? I cannot ride on any sort of saddle,’ Gascoyne wailed.

‘I will hire a small carriage for you and the luggage,’ Caroline promised, firmly trampling down the thought that roads to run a carriage over might not exist. The idea of Gascoyne on a camel was irresistible, if cruel, but she kept it to herself. Time enough to worry about that if the problem arose. ‘Now, shall we have our baths before we eat?’

Gascoyne, despite an initial protest that she should stay and attend on her ladyship before taking her own bath, was surprisingly easy to persuade—presumably too shaken by the awful revelations about their mode of transport to protest about anything else. She went off, after unlacing Caroline’s corsets and abjuring her to lock the door behind her.

Caroline sank into the cool water with a sigh of relief and lay back, idly twiddling her feet over the edge. It was a nice big tub, with a high back and deep sides. William and she had used to have a lot of fun in baths. He would sneak in and pounce with a soapy sponge when she least expected it, or pour in far too much scented oil and then rub it in all over her until she was as sleek as a wet seal and twice as slippery.

And then, when they were both thoroughly wet and laughing, he would tumble her out onto the piles of linen towels and they would make love…

‘Stop it!’ Caroline sat up abruptly, slopping water over the sides onto the highly polished wood. For goodness’sake, I have got to stop thinking about that! I have just made a complete fool of myself with a man, and proved I haven’t the temperament to even think about taking a lover. And I certainly don’t want to get married again: I would never find anyone as sweet as William, and I would probably end up with an insensitive lump like Hubert. So I had better learn to stop thinking about sex once and for all.

Which was an extremely sensible resolution, of course, if only one knew how to carry it out. And if only the memory of a mobile, sensual mouth and a pair of mocking grey eyes did not intrude every time one closed one’s own lids.

Two days’ rest in the Embassy served to restore the tone of Caroline’s mind somewhat. She had not ventured out yet, taking Mr Hamilton’s advice to adjust to the air and food, to rest, and decide what equipment she needed to purchase for her onward journey.

‘You will be visiting Bursa, I expect,’ he said confidently. ‘That is a relatively easy journey by land. If you wish to explore further along the coast, then I suggest hiring a boat.’

‘I am sure it is fascinating,’ Caroline replied politely. ‘And I will visit there at some stage. But my purpose in coming is chiefly to go into Anatolia.’

‘Anatolia? But very few westerners ever do that. It is wild and quite unchanged for centuries.’

‘Exactly—that is why I want to see it.’ She could see he was anxious, and added, ‘Will I have a problem getting a firman for that area? Is it restricted in some way?’

‘I do not think so—but it is so unusual, especially for a lady.’

‘I did not come all this way to do the usual thing,’ Caroline said briskly. ‘Now, what must I do to get my firman?’

‘I have sent a note to the official at the Sublime Porte who deals with such things. I expect an answer within a few days.’

Caroline told herself that she should not expect an instant response, and requested the loan of an interpreter who could show her around the city while she was waiting. Mr Lomax had departed even more promptly than he had expected, in the service of a returning diplomat rendered temporarily lame as a result of an injury.

She had been promised a guide for the afternoon, and had retreated to the sitting room placed at her disposal to con her notebooks for those sights she wished to visit first, when the Secretary reappeared, an expression of mixed alarm and satisfaction on his face.

‘The most extraordinary thing, Lady Morvall. A message from the Topkapi Sarayi: the Sultan will receive you personally in audience.’

‘The Sultan? But I did not ask for an audience! How has he even heard of me?’

‘Possibly officials dealing with your application for a firman were intrigued by the fact that a titled English lady is asking for such a thing. Lady Hester Stanhope caused no little stir, you know—she still does, for all that she is now in Syria.’

‘Well, I am no Lady Hester.’

‘Indeed not, I am glad to say,’ Mr Hamilton pronounced, reminding her forcefully of Hubert for a moment.

‘I presume declining is out of the question?’

‘Most certainly. I beg you would do nothing so deleterious to British interests, ma’am. This is a great honour.’

‘But what should I wear? How should I behave?’

‘Dress and behave as though you were summoned to a daytime audience with the Prince Regent, Lady Morvall.’

‘Should I wear a veil?’

‘No—His Majesty will want to meet an English lady in her native habit, as it were. His Majesty the Sultan Mahmud has a French mother, you know. She is a great influence upon him.’

‘His father married a Frenchwoman? I had no idea.’

Mr Hamilton coughed discreetly. ‘Not… er… married as such. Aimée Dubucq de Rivery, the Queen Mother, was captured by slavers and sold into the harem. She is the cousin of the late Empress Josephine.’

‘My goodness.’ Caroline was virtually speechless. It was like a sensational novel. But this was real. ‘When must I go?’

‘Tomorrow, after morning prayer. I will send a guide with you who can then take you on a tour of the old city, if you wish. Or you can return here if the visit has wearied you.’

‘Thank you.’ Just getting through an audience in a palace where the Queen Mother was a captured French slave was as far ahead as she could think. ‘I must go and tell my maid, and decide what we are to wear.’

‘Your maid is not included, Lady Morvall. To take her would imply a lack of faith in the protection His Majesty is able to extend to a visitor.’

‘Oh.’ One could only hope that in 1817 keeping female visitors was not considered an acceptable way of filling vacancies in the harem. ‘Well, I had better choose a gown and practise my court curtsey, Mr Hamilton.’

CHAPTER THREE

BUMPING down the hill to the dockside, taking the Embassy caique to the far shore and then climbing into the Embassy’s best coach, which had been sent over the night before, Caroline tried to recall if she had felt this nervous before being presented at court in London. She rather thought not.

There had been the towering and hideously expensive ostrich plumes in her coiffure to manage, and the long-outdated hooped skirts to worry about, so, really, making her curtsey and dealing with the Prince Regent’s rather broad compliments had seemed a positive anticlimax.

Now she had neither hoops nor feathers to distract her—simply her very best half-dress gown and a bonnet which she could remove to display an elaborate coiffure suitable for Charlton House in the afternoon, if not the Topkapi Palace in the morning. She had been far too nervous to eat any breakfast, or do more than sip distractedly at a cup of coffee. If she made a poor impression, and the firman was refused, she would have made this journey for nothing, and her gesture towards William’s memory and his dream would end unfulfilled.

Opposite her sat the translator and guide the Secretary had given her, introducing him simply as Ismael. He was tight-lipped with nerves, obviously wondering what he had done to deserve having to guide a mad Englishwoman to the very steps of the Sultan’s throne.

‘We arrive, my lady,’ he said, twitching the lowered blinds back for a moment. ‘As part of the Ambassador’s household we may drive through the gate into the first court: it is a great honour.’

Caroline removed her bonnet and patted her hair into place. The carriage stopped, the door was opened and the steps let down. Hardly knowing what to expect, she stepped down into a large courtyard, bustling with people. All were men; she felt as conspicuous as if she was wearing a placard.

‘The Court of the Janissaries,’ Ismael whispered. ‘See?’ She followed the direction of his gaze and saw the groups of tall men in belted robes, their strange headdresses falling in long flaps of cloth behind. She noted the swords pushed through their belts and averted her eyes.

An official, his head swathed in a white turban of infinitely intricate folds, approached, spoke to Ismael and gestured for them to follow, barely sparing her a glance. It occurred to Caroline that, although she was the only woman in the courtyard, anyone could be behind the myriad of shuttered windows, watching.

‘The Ortakapi—now we enter the Second Court.’

Caroline tried to move with dignity across the seemingly endless space, managing her skirts, attempting not to start in surprise as a gazelle bounded out from behind a bed of roses, chased by a scolding peacock.

‘The Gate of Felicity and the Third Court.’ Ismael seemed steadier now he was working. ‘The Audience Chamber is before us.’

Caroline knew she should be making mental notes, that she should fix all this in her memory so that she could write it up as soon as she got back to the Embassy, but it was rapidly becoming a blur. The Prince Regent would faint with excitement at what she was seeing: the Pavilion at Brighton was a pale shadow of this confident sophistication.

They moved through a great portal, heavy brocade curtains were opened, and she was in a lofty square chamber, every surface decorated in marbles, vivid blue tile, ornate carving. And in the centre at the back stood a wide golden throne, half-chair, half-bed, covered in massed cushions.

An attendant in a sweeping fur-trimmed caftan thundered some announcement she could not understand. On the throne the man sitting cross-legged lifted his head from the document he was perusing, and at her side Ismael fell to his knees and prostrated himself.

Control, Caroline murmured, sinking as slowly as her shaky knees would allow into a deep curtsey. She held it for a long moment, then rose again, took six steps forward, sank again, rose and took a final six steps, sinking into the deepest curtsey yet, holding it until her thigh muscles screamed. She rose to stand before the Sultan.

The man regarding her with piercing black eyes was broad-shouldered in his purple brocade robes, black-bearded, and gave the impression of holding himself in stillness by sheer will-power. He was younger than she had expected, handsome. And he exuded a kind of virile, ruthless power that did not have to be expressed to be perfectly understood.

He spoke, a rich rumble of words, and the man standing to his side translated. ‘His Majesty the Sultan Mahmud, Commander of the Faithful, Lord of the Golden Horn, bids you welcome.’

‘I am deeply honoured by His Majesty’s gracious condescension in receiving me.’

‘His Majesty wishes to know what brings you to Constantinople.’

‘I desire to visit his beautiful city and his great lands, and to learn from what I see, should His Majesty be so gracious as to grant me a firman.’

The jet-black eyes regarded her steadily, then Mahmud spoke again.

‘Where is your husband?’ the translator asked.

‘I am a widow, Majesty.’

‘Of what years?’

‘Twenty-six years, Majesty.’

Silence. She forced herself to stand without fidgeting, her eyes modestly lowered. The Sultan raised a hand and a man stepped out of the shadows behind the throne. Caroline glanced up, and for a moment almost lost her composure. Then she realised she must be mistaken. She did not know him, although this man was black-haired, tall and broad-shouldered. He moved with a grace that reminded her of a big cat—and of a fantasy who had proved to be only too real.

But this was no Englishman: this man wore robes—yet another variation of the Ottoman court dress she saw all around her. His tall frame was clad in a silver-grey brocade robe, trimmed with black fur and worn over full black trousers; he was bareheaded and his black hair fell loose to his shoulders. It was not—of course it was not—the man from the ship.

He was stooping respectfully next to the Sultan, answering some question. Perhaps he was the official who had been dealing with her application? With a low bow he withdrew back into the shadows, and Caroline forced her attention back to the Sultan.

‘What man protects you?’ the interpreter asked, making her jump. He must have assumed she failed to understand him. ‘You have no husband; who then has you in his protection?’

‘No one!’ Idiot, he does not mean a lover. He means a bodyguard. ‘I mean, I shall hire such guides and escort as I require when I travel, Your Majesty.’

‘What garment is it that you wear now?’

‘It is described as a half-dress gown, Majesty. I thought it proper to dress as I would for an audience with my own sovereign.’

‘You do not then dress in men’s clothes, as your countrywoman does?’

‘Lady Hester, Your Majesty? No. I do not.’ Was that a bad thing, or good? Was she appearing dangerously inexperienced, or reassuringly respectable?

‘His Majesty graciously grants you your firman. May you travel safely, if the Prophet wills it.’

Yes! I have my firman—now all I need to do is to get out of here. ‘Your Majesty is most gracious.’ Caroline curtseyed, backed away, curtseyed again and finally found herself outside the door, Ismael mopping his brow at her side.

‘Oh, my goodness, what a relief that is over.’ Her hands were trembling, she realised. ‘Do you think we could sit down for a moment?’

‘No, my lady, we must go back to the carriage by the most direct way.’ A slight movement of his head towards a turbaned figure with the inevitable curving sword waiting behind them underlined the point. Ismael began to walk, pausing only as a man with a black panther on a chain crossed their path. The beast’s green eyes swivelled to examine Caroline. She held her breath, then it responded to a tug on its jewelled collar and padded on.

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