Dancing with Kings. Eva Stachniak

head with his index finger and looking straight into her eyes.

      ‘Beautiful,’ he murmurs. ‘These eyes will shame the light of the moon.’

      When they are left alone, Sophie looks around. The tiles on the floor are cool to the touch. She would have liked to take her shoes off and step on them with bare feet, but Mana’s eyes stop her. The walls are covered with tiles of different patterns. Most of them have blue, and gold in them, and the colours mingle in her eyes and shimmer. The thick stained glass windows dim the rays of the sun, make them dance with colours of amber and silvery dust. There are no chairs, but a few big cushions on a raised sofa covered with Persian carpets. The scent of honeysuckle joins the jessamine, the scent that penetrates her hair, her dress, clings to her skin.

      Is this how the Sultan smells, she wonders. Is his skin as soft as she imagines? As cool as the tiles?

      ‘Don’t say anything until you are asked,’ her mother whispers. Her face is pale and her eyes dart around the room. What is it that she wants to find?

      ‘Don’t look at the Princess. Keep your eyes down.’

      Mana has removed her own kerchief and wraps another layer of cloth over her daughter’s hair.

      What if the Sultan will not care for her? What if he takes one look at her and sends her back?

      But these are thoughts easily laughed away. In her heart of hearts she trusts her joy. A woman the Sultan summons becomes a quadin, a chosen one.

      ‘Someone must have seen you,’ Mana hisses, her voice rough with anger. ‘Didn’t I tell you not to wander alone.’

      The servant woman who enters the antechamber is wearing a pink kaftan over blue drawers, her hand touching her heart and lips in greeting. Silent, she beckons with her right hand and they follow, their heels clicking on the tiles. They walk through long winding corridors of closed doors, past a big room where women sit on big satin cushions, smoking nargila, working on their embroidery. One of them with diamonds in her turban, sitting on a lap of a Negress throws herself into her arms as if to hide in them. In another room a woman in a red dress is bending over a big loom, absorbed in the invisible patterns. To Sophie these images seem like pieces of a puzzle, a mystery she alone would be allowed to solve. This is making her deaf to Mana’s sighs.

      The Princess is wearing a vest of purple cloth, set with pearls on each side down to her feet and round her sleeves. It is tied at the waist with two large tassels embroidered with diamonds. Her shift is fastened with an emerald as big as a turkey egg. In the middle of her headdress two roses glitter, each made of a large ruby surrounded with clean diamonds. She is seated on a big silk-covered cushion, like an enormous animal at rest, its belly still full, but its eyes already on the lookout for the next meal. Her arms are strong and muscular, her skin smooth. Her black eyes, lined with kohl, are short-sighted for she leans forward as she speaks.

      ‘You have come,’ she says, as if their obedience surprised her. ‘Welcome to my home.’

      Perhaps, Sophie thinks, the Princess has been sent to appraise her, to see if she is worthy of the Sultan’s time. The Ottoman Princess, blessed with the riches of her father, her body cared for by her army of slaves, scraped, massaged and perfumed with the most precious of scents. Her hands are too big though, in spite of all the beautiful rings. Five on her right hand only. Two have diamonds bigger than hazelnuts.

      ‘Your Highness,’ she says, with her loveliest smile. ‘Is too kind.’

      The Princess gives a sign and servants enter with wooden trays, carrying sweets and strong Turkish coffee, its aroma filling the air. There are dried apricots, figs, raisins and dates from Basra, the sweetest that there are. Nuts in a gilded bowl. Fresh figs too, black and green. A jug of sherbet to drink. A sherbet for which, Sophie is told, snow has been fetched all the way from the highest mountains of India.

      ‘I love figs,’ Sophie says brightly and clasps her hands in delight.

      It’s too late for Mana’s look of warning. The Princess laughs too and promises that such a sweet child, such a beautiful girl could have all the figs in the Ottoman Kingdom. And apricots, and raisins. And pistachio nuts and sweet dark coffee that races in the veins and brings flashes of colour to the cheeks.

      She can have everything she wants. Beautiful dresses. Shawls. Velvet and damask and silk that the merchants bring all the way from China. The most exquisite patterns. A girl so beautiful should be wearing lots of gold to set off her raven hair and her olive skin. And soft, soft leather for her feet.

      ‘This child deserves the best,’ she says, her eyes leaving Sophie for a moment and resting on Mana, as if she were responsible for her daughter’s poverty. ‘Not the rags that she is wearing now.’

      Mana wriggles on her cushion.

      ‘Most illustrious of Princesses,’ she begins. ‘Your Imperial Highness. The light of my eyes.’

      She begs the Princess to think of her. A widowed mother of an only daughter. A beloved daughter she cannot think of parting with.

      ‘But she would live with me, in the palace, you silly woman. Have everything she could ever need. Can’t you see that? Does every Greek have to be so dense, so infernally stupid?’

      Seeing a frown on Sophie’s forehead, she changes her tone, quickly. Too quickly.

      Surely a mother cannot deny her child’s fate. Fight the fortune God offers her. The good life of opulence and comfort. Look at her hands, the Princess says, still accusing. Cracked and reddened like those of a scullery maid. Is that what you want for this angel? Is she to be your maid? Scrubbing pots? Ruining the gifts Allah has bestowed on her?

      ‘My God,’ Mana says, ‘forbids a mother to leave her child among strangers.’

      ‘My God,’ she says, looking straight into the Princess’s eyes, ‘does not allow some kinds of love.’

      The Princess laughs. ‘I know your God, woman,’ she says. ‘All your God wants is a good price for her. Here. Take this!’

      A purse filled with cekins lands in Mana’s lap with a thud. It is heavy. A bounty, a treasure. Money that could last them a few months. Pay the debts, buy new dresses, good tender lamb and fresh fruit. Pay for dangling earrings that would set off Dou-Dou’s shapely lobes, the graceful turn of her neck.

      A purse filled with gold.

      This is a fair price for a poor Greek girl, isn’t it? This and a promise of a good life, a full stomach, and hands that would not have to touch dirt ever again.

      ‘With me she will want for nothing.’

      Sophie looks at her mother. There is nothing I can do, Mana’s body tells her. I can refuse the gold or take it, this won’t make any difference. But I cannot tell her I do not allow you to stay here.

      ‘She’ll be like a daughter to me,’ the Princess coos. She has moved closer and the heat radiating from her touches Sophie’s arms.

      ‘She will sleep in my bed. She will go everywhere with me. I’ll buy her everything she wants.’

      Fear signals its beginning with a spasm in her stomach, then another, closer to Sophie’s heart. The soles of her feet are cold, her hands begin to tremble. In Bursa she has seen men show a bloodied leg of a fox, all that has remained in the snare they have set. The beast has chewed off its own hind leg and escaped.

      ‘I have never even asked your name,’ the Princess says.

      Sophie hesitates. She doesn’t really like the Princess at all. She doesn’t like the way her strong hand rests on her knee and squeezes it, as if the two of them had to stand together against Mana. She doesn’t like the hint of rot in her mouth. The tooth in front is black with decay. The visions of the Sultan’s favour have receded and suddenly she sees herself as a servant in this palace, carrying trays with raisins and nuts, making coffee somewhere in the kitchen. Perhaps scraping hair from