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robe of purple velvet lined with silver tissue. His horse was led by two slaves. Next to him was the Kilar Aga, the chief eunuch of the Seraglio in a deep yellow clothlined with sable. The Sultan was mounted on a horse whose saddle was studded with jewels.
    She often thinks of fate. Fate that can push her any which way, make her a slave or a queen, a lady or a whore. Lady Fate whose breath she feels right behind her, tickling the skin on her neck. Lady Fate, blind, fickle and full of spite.
    Or is it benevolence.
    Help yourself so God can help you, Mana says.
    ‘Look at yourself, Dou-Dou.’
    This is her aunt who says she could be her sister. Whose dresses are made of Genoan damask and silk. Whose rings catch the rays of the sun and reflect them back with a rainbow of colours. ‘These, my little Dou-Dou, are real diamonds.’
    Aunt Helena, Mana’s younger sister, hardly hides her annoyance at their hungry eyes trailing after her clothes, after the food on the table, after the trinkets with which she adorns herself. Aunt Helena with her sweet voice and the scent of roses around her, with hands soft and white.
    ‘Look at yourself,’ Sophie hears and watches how her cheap, coarse dress drops down, how her aunt’s fingers gently release the hooks of her petticoats, the folds of her chemise. How nothing obstructs the sight of her body. The shapely breasts, the belly button, the mound of black curls below. ‘Move your hips, Dou-Dou,’ Aunt Helena whispers into her ear, the hot air of her breath tickling. ‘Slowly, slowly. Don’t shake too much.’
    She sways her hips, shy at first, cautious. But she likes what she sees, she likes this nymph, this slender, beautiful girl framed by the gilded mirror. Standing beside this aunt of hers, her mother’s sister who now braids a string of pearls into her long hair. Is this the way Eve felt in theGarden of Eden when she saw her own reflection in the mirror of still water?
    ‘You are so beautiful, Dou-Dou. You can have everything you want. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, girl.’
    She turns her back to the mirror and looks over her shoulder. Her back is smooth and flexible. She can bend as easily as she climbed the branches of the oak tree in Bursa. She can kneel on the floor and let her body fall backwards, into a graceful curve, and then come back, slowly, her eyes locked on her own image.
    ‘You are worthy of a king’s bed.’
    The longing in her is like an ill wind that makes the air clammy with heat, filled with dust, unbearable. There has to be a release to all this want that has gathered in her. In the mirror her own eyes stare back at her. Two black coals of desire.
    She lowers her eyes, as if she were ashamed of her own beauty, and her aunt claps her hands and laughs. ‘Perhaps, I don’t need to teach you that much after all,’ she says.
    From the big mahogany chest of drawers, Aunt Helena takes out her best cashmere shawl, the one on which there is a flower on a stem, its roots dangling in the air. Long tendrils, clean of soil, no longer hidden in the earth. Such is the taste of the true ladies, her aunt says. They like botanicals.
Botanicals
, the word itself sounds different, more worldly than mere
plants
or
flowers
.
    Soft and silky to the touch, the shawl envelops her with misty warmth, a promise of a caress.
    ‘For a woman, nothing, my little Dou-Dou, works better than a bit of mystery.’
    A length of gauze replaces the cashmere shawl. Her aunt drapes it over her hair, around her waist. There is something flowery about the girl in the mirror now. A promise of lightness and fragrance of petals.
    Sophie laughs. She preens and coos, and kneels in frontof the mirror. She bows her head in a sweet gesture of submission her eyes deny. For the girl in the mirror is no longer a girl; she is a young, beautiful woman. A woman who likes her own boldness. A woman who likes the brightness of her own eyes; the flash of her beautiful white teeth; the dimple in her