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face.
    He barely glanced at her, so Eminee had the eunuchs remove her clothes, too.
    Alhi lent the girl’s budding beauty another glance. “What is your name?”
    “Shouhrae.” The girl was whispering with no spirit in her voice, trying to cover her nakedness with her hands, until a stern gaze from Eminee made her come to terms with her fate.
    “Speak up so that I can hear you!” Alhi found himself already annoyed with her lack of spark. “Who brought you here?”
    “My name is Shouhrae.” The girl’s voice was slightly steadier now. “My mother showed me to Tahir, your captain of the guard. He was the one who brought me here, to the lady Eminee.”
    Suddenly intrigued, Alhi leaned forward. “Why did your own mother show you to Tahir? Mothers usually hide girls from me.”
    “My mother was very sick and I had noone else in the world. What would become of me after she died? She had no choice.”
    Caught off guard by her reply, Alhi’s gaze grew distant. “True. You would feel very … lonely.”
    Eminee saw the odd look in his eyes, remembered that he occasionally sensed Hamko’s ghost in daytime, too - and immediately ordered the slaves to take the girl out of the room.
    When they were alone, Alhi hid his unease behind disdain. “By the gods of all my religions, now my harem has become a convent! Whoever has a girl to get rid of, they send her to me for feed and care.”
    Eminee listened patiently to the rest of his speech, though she had heard it before - and disapproved. It was not the speech of a Pasha, but that of a stingy goatherd.
    “My entire harem eat the best there is!” Alhi was grumbling still. “Dress up and ornate themselves with the best and then do what? Nothing. Except waste my treasures purchasing all the silk and trinkets in Hyperus. As long as they are young I can swallow it, but once they grow old and wrinkled, it is treasure thrown off a cliff.
    Eminee spoke in her most honey-laced voice. “You wish your harem to be largest of all, the envy of all men. Yet you complain at the arrival of a new - and pretty - girl.”
    “Yes. I wish to expand my harem at my own will. Not to have others unload their burdens on my back.”
    But his change of heart was as fast as it had always been when looking into Eminee’s eyes. “Anyway, let it be. Dress her up in silk and baubles, teach her the ways of the harem and tell her to watch her step. As for me, there is a good chance she never sees my face again. And no other man’s, either.”
    Eminee nodded. “Until it is time we marry her off to someone else to the benefit of you, my lord.”
    A touch of his grumbling returned. “We need to marry off a lot of them as speedily as possible to whomever I owe a favor, so that they will be feeding these gorgeous vultures, not I.”
    Despite herself, Eminee had to smile at how the goatherd’s sense of practicalities joined forces with the Pasha’s. “And thus improve your fortunes even further while defending your poor treasury.”
    “I must be a master strategist these days. Muhtar is building a harem of his own, you know. Velis, too. In Constantinople, but at my expense. Soon this palace will be nothing but a bejeweled stable full of dazzling women overseen by a few poor paupers like myself.” He shook his head. “Remind me to tell my sons not to fall in love too often!”

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XI
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    “Y our Dimitros would never do that, Froshenie. Few husbands are as devoted as he. Besides, where in the world would he find a beauty to match yours?”
    The question hung unanswered for quite some time in the flickering candle-light in the stately Vassiliou house’s living room. Froshenie was curled up, somewhat un-ladylike, in a large italian armchair by the fire, looking down on a closed book. Chryssie, the
Vaya
nurse, was seated on the carpet, trying to explain to her current charges, Ioannis and Antonia, that it was too early for a boy of six to be haughty towards a girl of four. He seemed to her to be