Now what? A chill went through Murad – he felt alone and lost. He needed a drink but the bottle was in his room. Damn damn damn. He crouched, his eyes darted from one door to the other, to the windows and the furniture.

Through the double doors to the left, from where the Agha had just returned, he would soon arrive at his mother's apartment. Beyond lay the apartments of the Sultan's wives, of Peresto, and the Valide. The doors to the right led back into the harem. Whichever way he chose, he was bound to run into eunuchs who would drag him back to the Palace-of-the-Heirs.

It had seemed like such a straightforward plan to track down Hamid in the arms of an odalisque in the harem. Not so much anymore, from here behind the sofa. Think, think.

The crouching made his legs go numb. He stood up, shook them vigorously to get the blood flowing, and his eye fell on something he hadn't noticed earlier. A thin, almost invisible vertical line in the wall. A secret door concealed in the panelling. Most rooms in the harem had one. Servants appeared and disappeared through such doors, but he had no idea where they led, and he had never considered the possibility of using one himself. It was not forbidden, it was unthinkable.

When he pressed gently, the door opened into a long, dark corridor. After he entered, it shut soundlessly behind him. A small gas lamp on the wall burnt far away. He advanced slowly towards it, turned right into another corridor, and left into yet another. The corridors ran along the walls of some of the harem rooms. Frightened and disoriented by the obscurity and the silence, he wanted to return to the comfort of the Blue Salon.

Retracing his steps, he searched for the hidden door. The corridors and the small burning gas lights on the walls all looked the same, though, and there was no door to be found. He turned around a corner, went down another corridor and another one. Still no door.

His lungs began to hurt, there was no air, and it was stiflingly hot. He trembled uncontrollably. Sobbing, he stopped, with his forehead pressed against the wall and his body drenched in sweat. He was trapped in this endless system of corridors. Inside the gut of a giant beast. The thought made him open his eyes wide, and he gasped at what he saw in front of him. A ghost? An evil spirit?

A face emerged in the obscurity, not heinous with burning eyes or horns, but like a smiling angel. An angel clothed like a bath attendant in the hammam. Thin and very pale, with large dark eyes like bottomless wells, wide open as if she stared at a ghost herself. At her feet lay a pile of towels. "Crown..." she stammered.

In the wall next to her, he spotted a hole the size of a small teacup. It had been cut out to accommodate a gas pipe or some other Western technology Medjid had been fond of. Whatever covered the hole on the other side of the wall now acted as a sift through which muffled voices escaped into the corridor. The angel's eyes darted to the hole, and back to Murad's face; she had been listening.

She put a finger over her lips and motioned for him to approach. He pressed his ear to the hole. Barely audible voices seeped through the wall. He listened intently: the croaking voice of the Valide and the high-pitched lisp of the Kizlar Agha. They talked about a prophecy. Something about Hamid plotting against the Sultan to take the throne before summers end. And about killing him, Murad. He opened his mouth in a silent scream. Maybe if he weren't so drunk, he'd have been able to make sense of it. Had a magic maker prophesied that Hamid would ascend to the throne?

The girl stared back at him, round-eyed.

Underneath the paralysing terror, he felt something collapse, like the hot air going out of a balloon. His body shook and a wave of nausea rose from his stomach. He slid to the floor and buried his face between his knees to block out the world. As the gas lamp on the wall flickered, he felt himself sliding into darkness. From somewhere between his ears came a persistent, ear-splitting sound. It hurts he wanted to say. His tongue rested like a heavy stone in his mouth and his lips tingled. What remained between brothers if trust was taken away? Just fear. Just hatred. Death.

He crawled back onto his feet. "Get me out of here," he hissed.

The girl picked up the towels and mimed the words: follow me.

A new surge of bile rose from his stomach, which he swallowed. Could he trust her? He shook his head to clear his thoughts. She was too grey and scrawny to be menacing. Did he have a choice? If he didn't get out of these corridors soon, he would go mad. If he let her lead, she could not pull a knife on him from behind, or strangle him. He wiped the sweat from his hands. If she tried anything funny, he would do the strangling with his bare hands.

Feeling less nauseated, he stumbled after her on silent feet, his eyes nearly closed with fatigue, down the corridor and on, into another. I am Murad, the son of Medjid, Crown Prince to the Ottoman throne.

There was hope. He would escape this labyrinth.

The thought of the prophecy resurfaced, and panic returned. Hamid and he used to make fun of the magic makers who circulated in the harem – the gipsies and the witches and sorcerers with their occult stories and so-called powers to read the future. The eunuchs believed in them, as did most of the women. As did he, if he were honest about it, which, usually, he was not. Not with Hamid, at least. Get a grip, it's just a prophecy, Hamid would say if he were here. But Hamid wasn't here.

He felt vertiginous with dread. Where was he? What if Hamid was already dead? Tears welled into his eyes. How could he have thought, even for a second, Hamid would do him harm? How disloyal. His own brother? He needed a drink. Why had he left the shelter of his rooms? Everything he did was wrong.

Through a secret door which led into the hammam, they slipped back into the Palace-of-the-Heirs, crossed the warm marbled floor, and before he knew it, they were back in the piano room. On his own familiar turf.

The empty bottles and glasses had been cleaned away. Distraught eunuchs swarmed around him. He swatted at them like flies and collapsed against the soft cushions of a divan. The old Agha would be whipped for having lost him he thought with some satisfaction.

With a sign of the hand, he ordered drink and rapidly emptied three glasses before he remembered the girl. She had vanished. It bewildered him for a moment, he would have liked to thank her. Offer her something. He thought of Hamid and decided that to atone for his disloyal thoughts, he had to immediately warn him that the Valide wanted to kill him. He pulled the silk sheet over his head. The situation was too overwhelming, he needed another drink before deciding what to do.

The raki and the deep sweet smell of burning incense soothed his jittery nerves. He became drowsy, cooled down, his breathing grew deeper and more regular, as he drifted into sleep.

When he woke up, it was night and Peresto sat next to him, straight-backed with her clear blue eyes resting on his face. He must have looked startled because she told him not to be afraid, the harem was asleep and her visit was unofficial. The girl, the angel, stood behind her.

His mouth was too dry to speak. The girl handed him a glass of water which he gulped down. He tried to sit. His head ached too much, and he fell back on the cushions.

Peresto gestured to the girl. Ayse had told her she'd found him in the servants' corridors, she said. Despite Peresto's neutral voice, Murad tensed at the humiliating memory, and that she should have heard of his undignified behaviour. Or see him flat out drunk on the divan. He could smell his own bad breath.

Peresto didn't seem to notice his sorry condition, though. Unfazed, she continued. Murad had done well to trust Ayse. She was a friend who helped her take care of things, like taking care of Murad while Hamid was away.

"He asked me to watch over you," she said.

Murad nodded, and his heart filled with love and forgiveness. Hamid had asked Peresto to watch over him. It made everything alright. He even saw the girl, Ayse, in a new, glowing light. Her translucent skin had made him think she was an angel when he first saw her, and he hadn't been completely wrong.

Peresto didn't explain Hamid's unexpected departure, nor did she reassure him he would return. All she said was, "Hamid is the Godfather of Cemile's newborn." Reassuringly simple and honest words, nothing like his own tortuous turmoil of questions and emotions.

In a moment of lucidity, he recognised he was overly sensitive, verging on the pathetic, and that he had a vivid imagination. He also recognised that the drink made his world even darker and more complex than it had to be. He wanted to reason in Peresto's cool headed manner, but he just couldn't do it.

"They will kill us," he blurted out. "First Hamid, then me. I must warn him." The rest flowed out of him as well, everything which the Valide and the Kizlar Agha had said. When he came to the prophecy, he added what he hoped was face-saving, derisory laughter, to show Peresto that he found the whole thing ridiculous. Although the Valide did not. The Valide believed it.

Peresto did not seem surprised or shocked by anything he said, not the way he had expected her to be. It made him feel small and stupid. His own fear was unmanly. Tucked away in the pockets of his tunic, his clenched fists felt clammy, and under his eyelids, tears burned. He was about to die, was all he could think. If only he could have a drink.

Peresto stood up. The way she looked at him made him want to bury his face in the soft fold of her neck and cry.

"Will you be alright," she asked softly.

With a drink or two he would be, he would go straight back into blissful sleep. At least until the nightmares returned. She seemed to read his thoughts.

"Drink is not good for you, Murad. It feeds your inner demons."

She gestured to Ayse. The girl kneeled by his side and brought out a small bottle.

"Leave the Valide to me, I will handle her. Let Ayse calm your nerves."

Murad was astonished how easy it was for him to let go. He should have remained on his toes and alert, but in that moment, he just needed soothing comfort.

Ayse let the drops fall onto his tongue. Ayse. Ayse, you smell of vanilla, he thought as he drifted off. And of honey.

______________________

Author's note

Alcohol consumption in the Ottoman Imperial Palace was a complex and discreet matter. While Islam prohibited the consumption of alcohol, the palace's relationship with alcohol was not entirely straightforward. Sultan Abdülaziz, for example, was known to have a taste for European-style gatherings and was more lenient towards alcohol consumption compared to some of his predecessors.

But alcohol was not openly served or consumed in the palace's public areas or during official events. It was enjoyed privately by some, particularly those with a more Westernised outlook. The palace's kitchen staff would discreetly procure and serve alcoholic beverages, such as wine and spirits, to these individuals in their private quarters.

This practice was not universally accepted, and many adhered strictly to Islamic principles, abstaining from alcohol entirely. The presence of alcohol in the Imperial Palace reflected the ongoing tensions between traditional Islamic values and the increasing influence of Western culture and customs within the Ottoman elite during the late 19th century.

Other such areas of tensions between Islamic tradition and Western culture was clothing, music and entertainment, architecture, language (French became increasingly popular among the Ottoman elite as a language of diplomacy, culture, and sophistication), education, and, as we will see in this story, Western political ideas, such as constitutionalism, nationalism, and liberalism.

These new ideas led to the emergence of reform movements, such as the Young Ottomans and the Committee of Union and Progress, which sought to modernise and democratise the empire along Western lines. The embedded image is from 1895, a postcard celebrating the introduction of an Ottoman constitution in 1876. In the image you find AbdulHamid, the different millets (Turks with red flags and Arabs with green flags, Greeks, Armenians) and a non-veiled Turkey rising up from her chains.