Reshid listened intently to Peresto's words. "Reshid, mon ami..." whispered into the gold embroidered drapery which split the room in two, separating them, and had separated them during their French lessons for week after week, year after year. He heard warm affection in her voice and pride swelled into his thumping heart.

"I am your friend, Princess Peresto, and your loyal servant," he managed to answer, feeling the weight of her eunuch's watchful gaze on his back. With his hands tucked into the wide sleeves of his dervish tunic, he closed his eyes and imagined the toe of her slipper appearing beneath the drapery. A pointed slipper? What colour? Silver? Blue like the sea?

Through the curtain, he heard her stand. Too soon, their time together was over. With a rustle of fabric and the sound of a heavy door swinging shut, she was gone, leaving him alone with the lingering scent of her perfume. The silence around him swelled. His emotions were in turmoil, and the paper note, still hidden in the sleeve of his tunic, chafed at his skin.

A chit-chatting Agha escorted him out of the Imperial Harem, but Reshid did not hear him. Neither did he notice that the morning mist after the night's rain had given way to a brisk and fair spring day, or that the sky was cloudless and blue, or that a flock of swans flew south along the shore.

As he dragged his lame leg towards the gilded palace gates, Peresto's words – derisive and shrewd, he thought bitterly – turned in his head, and the darned paper note in his sleeve still grazed his skin. Disappointment and anger festered inside. His whole body revolted. To think he had dreamt of how Peresto's slender fingers (it's how he imagined them) would open his note with a caress, of how her eyes would light up at reading his words, of how she would press his signature to her lips. What on earth had he been thinking?

He scoffed out loud. How pitiful he was. He had let down his guard, again, allowing her purring voice to get under his skin, again. It possessed him and haunted his dreams, fanning a tiny flame of hope. Then every time, it reined him in and brought him to heel. He could feel its alluring tickle as he fled, leaving the palace behind him.

By the time he was heading down the road toward his home in Galata, he was in such an agitated state of self-loathing that he barely registered the bustle of daily life through the haze of his racing mind. Overwhelmed, he stopped in his tracks and closed his eyes, taking a moment to steady his breathing and collect his thoughts.

He brought out the note from inside his sleeve and crushed it between his fingers. The poetic words of love he had painstakingly written for her, rejected. Well, not really rejected. He never dropped the note on the floor as he had planned to do, he never pushed it with the toe of his shoe under the hem of the curtain which separated them, and the toe of her slipper never emerged to receive it.

Instead of delivering his note he had recognised it for what it was: vulgar, sick, insulting. How could she have accepted it? She, a Sultana. It would have been beneath her dignity. She would have rejected it and punished him for his insolence, forbidding him from ever returning to the palace again. The mere thought of it made him break into a cold sweat and his courage failed him. Not for the first time, he left the harem with a note tucked into his sleeve, frustrated at his own weakness, and with an aching heart.

Night and day, he thought about her. Not because he needed her, he rarely needed women. He rarely needed anyone. It was his fate to live without love, without family and children.

On a couple of occasions, as a younger man, he had solicited prostitutes, young girls, but he hadn't liked the destructive, transactional nature of the act. He didn't really want Peresto either, not sexually. What he dreamed of was to unveil her mystery, to open her up gently, with caresses and kisses. He wanted her sharp, disciplined mind. He wanted her natural confidence, her sense of belonging and purpose. But most of all, he wanted to reveal himself to her, to stand naked before her, to rest his head in her lap and be caressed and loved.

He spat on the ground, clenched his teeth, his heart hardened and, with the heel of his sandal, he trampled the note in the dust.

"Mr Vambery?"

He swirled around with a strained smile to mask his surprise. Not many people in this city called him by his Catholic, Hungarian name. A carriage with the British Queen's coat of arms had stopped next to him. The man inside had a hawk-like expression, and thick white whiskers.

"You are the renowned Vambery, are you not? We were introduced a long time ago, before your travels. Sir Elliot, the Queen's envoy to the empire."

Reshid knew who he was. They had been introduced by a mutual acquaintance. Reshid had wanted a job as a translator with the Embassy years ago, but Sir Elliot, fresh off the boat from Europe, had probably felt an eccentric Muslim dervish was of scant value to the Queen's Ambassador. Reshid had been refused and hadn't heard from Sir Elliot since.

But now the British Ambassador sounded glad to see him. With a click of the heels and a deep bow, the aide-de-camp opened the carriage door.

For him?

Reshid was flattered but confused. In a flash image he saw himself from the outside, through the eyes of the Ambassador: a limping old man in the plain, ridiculous clothes of a Muslim pilgrim, with one foot on a trampled piece of paper. Beneath the polite smile, Reshid felt disgruntled, as if he had been caught in an embarrassing act of intimacy.

"You are Vambery, are you not," Sir Elliot asked again.

"I am," he said flatly. How could he explain that he was, and yet was not Vambery? He was so many things.

"You have just come from the palace?" Sir Elliot asked.

Reshid straightened up. "For many years now, I am the French teacher of Princess Peresto Sultana and of her stepson, Prince Abdul Hamid."

There was a sparkle of interest in Sir Elliot's blue eyes.

"My dear Vambery, are you headed to Galata? Can I offer you a ride?"

Stepping into the carriage, Reshid felt a flutter in his gut, afraid that someone who knew him at the palace, one of Peresto's spies, might see him. He took his seat, stiff and perfectly alert, as if all his senses had been switched on simultaneously by a looming threat. He had no illusions that the Ambassador was interested in him for his own sake. Why would he be now, when he never had been before? It was more likely that the generous lift back to Galata in her Majesty's carriage was a fishing expedition. He was the fish, swollen with palace secrets. But he didn't mind it. It flattered his ego that Sir Elliot should put attention and effort into hooking him.

The carriage jolted into motion. Sir Elliot brought out a flask and two silver cups. "Port?"

When Reshid declined, Sir Elliot excused himself and put away the bottle.

"Of course you don't drink."

"I've lost the habit."

The Ambassador proceeded to talk about inoffensive things like the spring weather, Turkish coffee, and then, gradually, about his work. With the palace far behind them, Reshid relaxed into the velvet seat of the carriage. There was nothing to fear. What damaging information about Peresto did he possess anyway? What was the harm in talking a little?

More than once, Sir Elliot leaned forward across the narrow space between them, the swaying carriage, their knees almost touching, to speak in confidence or ask advice. Was the Tsar looking for an excuse to send his troops into the empire's Balkan provinces? Would the softa protests turn into armed rebellion? What did Reshid think?

It didn't feel safe to question the Tsar's intentions in the Balkans, not when the Sultan did not. And it was not prudent to suggest the softa would take up arms against their own government, even if Reshid had discussed this possibility with Peresto during their last French lesson. So Reshid talked sparingly.

Sir Elliot spurred him on, pushed and prodded, curious and eager for more. "You know, the Sultan refuses to see me," he said, as if to a colleague or trusted friend. "For months already. Just imagine my situation, the Queen expects me to explain what the Sultan is doing in the Balkans and all I, her Majesty's Ambassador, can tell her is what I read in the newspaper. How can I explain to her he won't see me? Today I waited three hours to be received, just to be told to go home. How difficult the Turks can be! So infuriatingly different from us."

Sir Elliot laughed as if he had told a joke. "Forgive me. I'm venting frustration and being much too honest."

Until now, Reshid had seen Sir Elliot as different from him, but now he could see they were also similar in many ways. Both helplessly strung along by the mysteries of the palace, both struggling to decipher the secret codes, both searching for a way in, and to turn the tables so they could play rather than be played.

He tried to imagine what it might feel like to advise the Queen, and to fail her. In fact, it was easy to imagine – his heart sank, his mouth filling with the acrid taste of it. He was failing Peresto right now. She confided in him, she trusted him. Yet here he was, allowing himself to be courted by the British. He was not too proud to admit he'd been overwhelmed by the urge to bask in the sunny attentions of the Queen's envoy. Even now, his pulse quickened: to be seen after years in obscurity, to be valued rather than used and ridiculed. How weak he was. How very weak.

"I should get out here already." He mumbled an excuse and appreciation for Sir Elliot's generosity.

As he shut the carriage door behind him, Sir Elliot pulled aside the curtain. "Tell me," he said, "a name like Vambery, it's not Turkish is it?"

"Hungarian, Sir."

"Catholic?"

"Indeed."

"Yet here you are Reshid, a Muslim dervish?"

"I am."

"You live like them?"

"Eat like them, speak like them. Think like them."

Sir Elliot contemplated this for a moment. He smiled broadly. "But beneath your simple kaftan, you are one of us. Come to dinner at the Embassy. I will send a footman with an invitation."

The words floated like a glimmering bait bobbing on the surface of the water.

_______________________

Author's note

The Ottoman Empire had a long-standing practice of employing eunuchs, both black and white, as servants in the royal palace. It was seen as a necessity to maintain the segregation between the sexes and to prevent any potential sexual misconduct or scandal that could threaten the stability and reputation of the Ottoman dynasty.

Slave traders captured, traded, or purchased these eunuchs from various regions, including Africa, the Balkans, and the Caucasus. Islamic law prohibits castration, but the Ottoman authorities accepted it as a practice as long as non-Muslims performed the castration outside the borders of the Islamic state, thus absolving themselves of direct responsibility. Coptic Christians monks in Egypt, known for their knowledge of medicine and surgery, developed techniques to minimise the risk of death during the gruesome procedure, which few boys survived.

Starting in the late 16th century, the empire began to increasingly rely solely on black African eunuchs. In Hamid's time, there would have been few, if any, white eunuchs in the palace. Eunuchs would have been responsible for attending to Hamid's needs.This would have included dressing him, as well as overseeing his education, managing his schedule, and ensuring his well-being.

The embedded image from the RA collection in London, is of a Kizlar Agha, a Chief Eunuch. Agha was a general title of respect used for various positions of authority in the Imperial Palace. In the harem, all agha were eunuchs, with the Kizlar Agha in the most senior position, making him one of the most powerful men in the Empire.