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words. She barely dared breathe. She needed to hear this next part.
    ‘Oh, Feyra, I was not careful, like you are. I see the way you dress yourself, the pains you take to hide your light. I was not chary. I walked in Sultanamet in my fine Venetian gowns, blooming with my love and with my child, my face uncovered, my hair dressed in ringlets. I was handsome then, Feyra, I had golden hair and pearly skin and sea-coloured eyes. One day as I walked back from the Bazaar a litter passed me – the Sultan Selim was within, and as the breeze blew one of his curtains opened and our eyes met for an instant. It was enough. By nightfall I was in the Harem, Iwas given the name Nur Banu Afife, and Cecilia Baffo was no more.’
    ‘What did my father do?’
    Cecilia gave the ghost of a smile. ‘He raged and screamed. He came to the palace and broke down the doors with his bare hands, demanding the return of his lover and the child in her belly. He was taken by the guards to the Sultan and told that if the child was born a boy it would be killed, for it could not live to challenge any true heirs born to my body. The Sultan himself did not lie with me until the child was born. He waited to claim me. It was a terrible few months Feyra, to wait for my child.’
    ‘But the child was a girl, wasn’t it?’
    Feyra didn’t need the affirmation of Cecilia’s weak nod. Suddenly all was clear: her daily visits to the Harem for as long as she could remember; that her mistress had not raised her voice to her until today; that Nur Banu herself had taught her to read and write and speak the language of her youth; that she’d encouraged her in her medical interests to garner the knowledge that other women were rarely given.
    ‘Your father was given rank and status in return for his acquiescence; and he was given you, his daughter, to raise in peace in the city. He was given your life in return for two things: his absolute loyalty to the Sultan and all his heirs, and his promise that he would never attempt to see me again. And I have never seen him, Feyra, not once from that day to this.’ Nur Banu’s eyes turned to glass. ‘By the time we battled the Venetians at Lepanto your father was an Admiral, the very rank my uncle the Doge held for the Venetians. I watched from this very window, Feyra, straining my eyes, imagining I could see all the way to the Straitsof Patras where the two fleets met, where my lover Timurhan and my uncle Sebastiano fought each other with fire and cannon, under the orders of my husband Selim.’
    Feyra had to lean in to hear her now.
    ‘I became happy again, over time. I came to love my lord the Sultan, not with the youthful passion I had for your father, but with a growing respect and companionship. He was a good and kind man, as different to our son as night is to day. I learned how to make myself indispensable, and rose from Odalisque to Concubine, Concubine to Kadin, Kadin to Sultana. I began, slowly, to exert my influence, to promote pro-Venetian policies. But when my husband died, as you will remember, all that ended. You will well recall, Feyra, how we strived to ensure Murad’s succession, and you will know, now, why I trusted you and no other to help me in that endeavour. But it had been better if I had let Murad’s rivals take the throne; for my son is truly evil, and is consumed with hatred for Venice and, by association, for me.’
    Feyra climbed into the bed now, and brought her ear close to her mistress’s dry and cracked lips. The Valide Sultan moved one bloated arm across Feyra’s body in an embrace, and smiled the ghost of a smile, as if the intimacy gave her great happiness.
    ‘Do not pity me. I have had the private consolation, all these years, of having a child who is the light that lightens my days. He does not know, my son, who you truly are, for he was born a year later and my ladies kept the secret well. I was able to keep you close, and watch you grow. You are so clever, courageous and kind.