In Mrs Elliot's drawing room, where tea was served after dinner, the ladies assembled around Reshid.

"Is it true the wife of the Sultan is your student," Jane asked. Contrary to her grim brother, she was the life of the party. Reshid couldn't help noticing the blond ringlets of hair which bounced off her white shoulders when she spoke.

"The Princess Sultana Peresto, one of many wives of the former Sultan Medjid."

"Such impossible names," another woman said. "Please Mr Vambery, how do you pronounce them?"

Reshid articulated: Medjid, Peresto, Abdulaziz, Hamid. The ladies repeated after him and failed – there was general laughter. Jane put a slender hand on Reshid's arm and declared with great pride, as if it were her own achievement, this was the most remarkable man she had met in a long time. Jane's flowery scent, her hand on his arm, the sparkling eyes of the women directed towards him, and the many glasses of wine, made him a little flustered.

"How many wives did Sultan Medjid have," a lady asked.

"Twenty. And forty-four children," he said.

"And is Peresto pretty, prettier than we are?" Jane blinked to the other women who all chimed in excitedly.

What could he tell them? That he did not know? That the French lessons with Peresto were held under the strictest supervision. That they were separated by a gold embroidered drapery, which only gave away the rustle of her dress as she moved, a whiff of her perfume, light and fresh like spring flowers, and her soft voice conversing about politics or literature or philosophy in almost perfect French. It seemed like a failure that, in all these years, he had, in fact, never set eyes on her. He breathed in, deeply, then breathed out.

"Her eyes are brown," he said, feeling a choking pressure around the heart. The breathless ladies around him dimmed. What was he doing? What was he doing here? He could say anything, it was all beyond his control. He felt daring and reckless. Who were these people to him? What was she to him?

In the home of a Frenchman, he had once seen a brightly coloured painting of a harem and now he heard himself embark on a story with half-naked, lustfully dancing women and growling, thick lipped eunuchs. There was a naked foot in a tiny slipper, exposed breasts, a delicate headdress over soft curls, the sensual rustle of silks. He put Peresto right in there, in the painting, scantily dressed, yearning, available. Shamelessly, he dragged her through the mud, strung her up for public display, moving from image to image as if she were the subject of a peep show.

In the early days, after he'd only just stepped off the Danube steamer (when he was still Vambery, posing as a Catholic with a Hungarian sounding name), he had earned a living reciting love-poems in Stamboul coffee-houses. The lounging, pipe-smoking crowd had paid him cheese, bread and coffee, and begged for more. Now, the ladies in Sir Elliot's drawing room spurred him on, pushed and prodded, curious and hungry. When he thought of it afterwards, he knew it was a stab-in-the-back. Not only the way he humiliated Peresto, but how it had made him feel. He wished he were a better man. A nobler man. But in that moment, his wiry body ballooned with importance as he heedlessly pumped it all out. He was out of control. Unable to stop himself. Unplugged. He told an exotic and depraved story, cold and denigrating and untrue, to the rapture of his audience.

Mrs Elliot finally swept into the room and took his arm. "Ladies, ladies," she said. "Let Mr Vambery smoke a cigar with the gentlemen outside."

He wandered out and lingered on the terrace, too flustered to join the men under the pomegranate tree. The air smelled sweet. Jasmine, perhaps. Away from the ladies' attention, he felt deflated and ashamed. How easy it had been to tell lies about Peresto. He shuddered to think what she might do if she ever knew. She would never forgive him. She would ban him from the palace.

In the flickering candlelight, the men beneath the tree looked like ghosts. Through the velvety darkness he heard their muffled voices: MacGahan and Sir Elliot were arguing.

"There are other, more balanced reports of the massacres," Sir Elliot said.

"It is my moral duty to share my findings with all Europeans, no matter what you think of it, Sir Elliot," MacGahan said in his thick American accent. "I will not be silenced. We should have nothing to do with these brutes. British interests lie in India, not here or South Asia. Vambery's idea of Russian strength in this part of the world is exaggerated. He is an eccentric linguist, with little understanding of geopolitics."

Reshid paled.

The men laughed softly. "True as that may be," Sir Elliot said, "you, MacGahan, are a moralist, and morality has no place in business or affairs of state."

"Well, maybe it should do."

"Don't be naïve! You think the Russian intentions are noble? Have you considered what would happen if they controlled the Suez Canal? They would block it. British ships would have to sail all the way around Africa to get to India. I for one, prefer these brutes, as you call our Turkish friends, with us rather than with the Russians."

"If you can manage them, yes." A new voice, William Seagrave's. "But at the moment, it doesn't seem to be the case."

The last statement engendered a tense silence. There was no disputing that Britain – or rather, the Queen's Ambassador, Sir Elliot – did not control Sultan Abdulaziz; the Sultan wouldn't even see him. A stinging criticism.

A servant emerged from the shadows to top up the glasses and serve fresh cigars. MacGahan excused himself. His ship was due to leave for England first thing in the morning.

Reshid slipped into the shadows and MacGahan returned inside without seeing him. Under the pomegranate tree, Sir Elliot and William Seagrave were left alone.

"I ask you to be patient, William," Sir Elliot said.

"Patient? The empire is a rudderless ship. Do you realise it can no longer service its debt to its European creditors? We believe it is a month away from a second bankruptcy. Except this time, no one, not friends or allies or private creditors, will lend them more money. What then? Something must be done."

There was a new long silence before Sir Elliot said, "Things will change. Midhat Pasha's reinstatement will be an important first step. He's a reasonable and intelligent man, and more importantly, he's a friend. He will manage the Sultan."

"This Sultan will not be managed, not by Midhat Pasha or by anyone else. Look, all I want is my money back."

"Not just you, William. Many British lost money when the empire defaulted last year. That's what makes the situation so complicated. There's an election at stake for us, and MacGahan isn't helping. I have to tread carefully."

"Politics." William spat out the foul-tasting word.

"Yes, politics. But let me tell you this: if Gladstone wins the election – and there's a good chance he might, considering the way the British public feels about the Sultan right now, first with the default and now these damned massacres, and the likes of MacGahan stirring up trouble and blaming the Prime Minister – then you will never see your money again."

He paused and continued in a gentler tone. "Gladstone and MacGahan are made of the same stuff. They're ready to sacrifice the empire for a moral principle, hand everything – Suez Canal and all – to the Russians. Leaving Britain, leaving you, with nothing. So right now, William, I'm your best bet. Give me a chance to do my job and manoeuvre with the subtlety the situation requires. Be patient."

There was a silence. William said, "Controlling the Sultan is not enough. If we are to get our money back, we must control the Ottoman Central Bank."

William cleared his throat before speaking again. "Henry, if, as Ambassador, politics prevents you from doing the necessary, why don't you let me try? I can operate without constraints, and our objectives are the same. Let me help. No one needs to know."

A new long silence.

"Well, there is something you can do. Midhat Pasha has asked for money, but before the election this government cannot offer him anything."

"Money for what?"

"He pays the softa to get them into the streets, and to arm them. The softa have demanded Midhat be brought back into government. He shares our vision for the future of the empire, it would be a good investment. Trust me."

"Alright, I'll get him the money."

Reshid was too agitated to think straight. He felt he should inform Peresto of all this. It was an important conversation, and smelled of betrayal. But what had really been said? Nothing had been agreed, had it? These political games seemed too big for him, too opaque, too complex, but worst of all, they obliged him to take sides. Attending this dinner had been a mistake and he struggled with the disappointment. He felt empty and exhausted. If only he were at home, in his study. A painful spasm in his buttock radiated down into his lame leg. He stifled a cry and limped inside, finding a servant who took pity on him and installed him on a comfortable canapé in the library, his leg lifted to allow the blood to circulate.

"Call me a cab, please," he asked the servant.

The sound of the ticking clock made him restless. He studied the portrait of the Queen behind the desk, then stood up and began to look through the books on the shelves. Moving to the round table at the centre of the room, he opened a book with ancient maps and flicked the pages to Central Asia. The evening had aroused in him an inner disturbance which not even the maps he loved so much could dissipate. An eccentric linguist, they had called him, ridiculing his opinion. He was of no value to them, or to anyone. He was used to it. If it weren't for Sir Elliot's overtures, he would have had no expectations.

He pressed his lips together and hardened his heart. He would bide his time, make them underestimate him like he had been underestimated all his life. His eyes returned to the portrait of the Queen. And for his manuscript, he did not need Sir Elliot to get it published in London.

_______________________

Author's note

The dinner party which Reshid attends reflects on the one hand the geopolitical discussions that I imagine may have taken place at the British Embassy in 1876, but also, the Western view at that time, of the Orient (the Middle East, Asia, and North Africa).

In my research I came across the influential work of Edward Said (Orientalism, 1978). Said argues that the Western perception and representation of the Orient is not based on objective reality, but on a constructed, stereotypical, and often romanticised image. Said termed this distorted view "Orientalism". Orientalist art reinforced Western stereotypes of the Orient as a place of mystery, sensuality, and moral laxity, in contrast to the supposed propriety and restraint of Western society.

Like so much of the 18th and 19th century art of the Orient, Reshid depicts Peresto and the women of the harem, as sexually available, and eager to please. What I found so interesting to learn is that this Orientalist representation was largely based on the imagination and preconceptions of Western male artists, who, unlike Reshid, had little to no access to actual harems due to the strict gender segregation in Ottoman society. In other words, the artist's subject, like the one in the embedded image, a painting by Jean Léon Gérôme, was very likely entirely made up.