“I am Bilhah. A newcomer.” She has picked up a few words of Ottoman Turkish, and she uses it now, though she can try again in Spanish or Greek

Three weeks later, Spring 1535

Imperial Palace, Istanbul

 Darkness. Quiet. Bilhah waits for her eyes to adjust and for the darkness to shift into the shape of shadows. The dining room, the great atrium — the rooms of the palace are bright with the glow of a thousand copper lanterns. The sudden entrance into the sleeping hall of the palace has blinded her.

The line moves forward gradually. From the pile on the right, take a sleeping mat. A few more paces, select a blanket, then a pillow.

Bilhah steps forward, watching, watching. A woman presides over the sleeping mats, and she gives Bilhah a tiny nod, as if to acknowledge her newness.

There are tricks in the selection, Bilhah is certain. Some mats are thicker, some are worn and the bamboo splinters into your fingers as you lift it. The next pile is harder as it is further inside the room and darker. She cannot see the blanket, but lets her fingers choose. After a moment’s hesitation, her fingers close over the scratch of wool rather than the coolness of cotton. She may regret it: surely this sleeping hall will get warm as it fills and the night progresses, but for now the nights are cold.  Arms laden, she walks deeper into the sleeping hall.

She looks around. In the middle of the room is a brazier, which will provide blessed warmth. The places around it are taken. The next most coveted places are by the windows. She wonders why, when they must be chilled by the wind. Perhaps those by the window manage a secret walk in the Imperial gardens by moonlight. Where should she place her blanket?

The answer is in her skin. That balance — servility and survival. Deference and defending yourself. She should be skilled at it by now. She finds an empty space and joins the noise: the rustle of straw as the sleeping mats are unrolled and spread on the floor. The swish of blankets as they are unfurled. Pillows are thumped and whispers begin.

There are two windows in the hall that look out to the garden of the new palace. With the fall of the evening, the jasmine bushes have opened and their scent wafts in: faintly intoxicating, sweet and strange, a smell that may be pleasant, but may also be evil.

Her bones ache with tiredness, but she will fight sleep. For now is her chance to talk, to ask, to gather advice, to learn who here is cruel and who is kind, and whose protection to seek.

She turns to the woman bedding down to sleep beside her.

“I am Bilhah. A newcomer.” She has picked up a few words of Ottoman Turkish, and she uses it now, though she can try again in Spanish or Greek. There are all languages here: the driver of the caravan she joined told them that servants come from as far as the Germanic lands, a few from the Levant and North Africa, not to mention Alexandria in Egypt.

Istanbul, she had learned on the road, is the eye of the world, and wherever it gazes is swallowed inside. And the dark, unknown pupil of that eye is the Sultan: Suleiman the magnificent, Suleiman the lawmaker, Suleiman the chosen.

“What should I know?” Bilhah asks.

The woman blinks. “That sleep is important. And do not talk to those more senior than yourself.”