Chapter One

The Secret Door by Noelle Mack

The deep blue of twilight suffused the garden where Yasmina walked alone. She stopped at the black-tiled fountain at its center, bubbling with water that rose from an ancient, buried spring. Only she came here—the other odalisques of the Topkapi harem shunned this place, convinced that the strange shadows cast by the garden’s old walls had enchanted the water and the flowers that drank from it.

Yasmina had listened to these tales and then, left to her own devices, dipped her fingers in the fountain, not caring if the water was poison, and found it pure in taste. Still, it was whispered that evil spirits, djinns and ifrits, lurked in its dark depths. For that reason the garden had been neglected, and for that reason she preferred it. Here, sweet white roses sent out thorny shoots, climbing up and over the walls with wild abandon, as if they might someday escape the earth in which their roots were buried.

But the roses could not. Nor could she ever leave this place, she thought with bitterness. Though she wanted for nothing in this golden realm, nothing belonged to her—not her beautiful gowns, not her embroidered slippers, not the jewels that hung between her perfect breasts, bared under silken gauze.

Yasmina shivered. A cool breeze wafted through the garden, enlivening the air and clearing her mind. Her nipples stood out against her white skin, white as the roses she walked among. Here in the harem, no one considered such display of female flesh immodest. There were only women to see. Like them all, Yasmina was the property of the sultan, a debauched and repulsive old man whom she glimpsed only rarely from behind a latticed wall of precious marble, under the great dome of the palace, holding court among his viziers and eunuchs.

His chief wife and favorite, the plump and lovely Gulbahar, made a great show of enjoying his company, as did the kadins, his lesser wives. The odalisques did not have to, as a rule. The sultan Suleyman was too old to visit many beds, and weary of the quarrels and vicious rivalry among the women.

Left to themselves, watched over by eunuchs and attendants within the harem walls and armed guards without, the young odalisques entertained themselves with storytelling and poetry, and games of chance and skill, and songs that extolled the prowess of legendary lovers and erotic bliss. When those amusements palled, there was always gossip. And for some, hashish and opium, which allowed their minds to flee the lovely bodies that had brought them to a state of bondage.

Yasmina wanted only to be by herself. As no one spoke her dialect, she was ignored and avoided, and some thought she was deaf and mute. A few seemed to look at her with pity in their beautiful eyes, but she cast her gaze down, not wishing to be entangled by an emotion as useless as pity.

Being alone was her fate. And there were far worse fates, she reflected, sipping from the crystal cup a harem servant had brought her an hour ago, filled with sherbet that had melted by now, made with berries and herbs and fine white sugar.

It had been prepared in the harem kitchen, made from snow that was brought down from Mount Olympus every spring. Before she had been sold into slavery by her avaricious uncle— whose clutches she had been glad to escape, knowing nothing of what awaited her here—she had seen the caravans of the snow men and marveled at the sight. They wore turbans piled with snow, driving teams of fifty and sixty mules, who strained to pull white mountains of the stuff, piled into wagons. Yet even a miserable mule had more freedom than she, though many might envy her fine clothes and jewels.

She set the crystal cup in a niche that had once held a vase and sat down on the edge of the fountain, soothed by the rhythm of the bubbling water. Yasmina stared down, focusing on an elusive blue light in its depths that seemed to come and go. A minnow, she thought. With scales of a hue to match the twilight. The blue light vanished and the water grew calm. She drew in her breath. For two years she had come here and never in all that time had the water been still.

She saw a white rosebud reflected upon its mirrored surface, tiny and tightly furled, and so perfectly like a real one that she touched the water, thinking that it had fallen there. To her surprise, the bud opened, becoming a huge, full-blown rose under her fingertips. Its stem shot above the water, and an unusual fragrance filled the air. Yasmina drew back.

Come to me. The deep voice was male. It came from everywhere—and nowhere. Yasmina looked wildly about the shadowy garden and saw no one. If she were caught with an intruder, she would be killed with him, her throat swiftly cut. Or she would be tied into a sack and drowned in the indifferent sea, depending on the whim of the executioner. She had no friends within the harem, no wise woman to plead her innocence.

The huge rose sank back into the fountain and vanished by a magic beyond her understanding, yet its fragrance lingered.

The air grew still and warm, oppressively sensual. Yasmina put her hand into the fountain, craving a few cool drops upon her forehead and her lips. Her mouth was suddenly parched.

A goblet made of ice rose from the depths of the fountain, brimming over with its water. Her hand clasped it and could not let go.

Drink, Yasmina. On a hot night, cold water is as intoxicating as wine.

Compelled by an unseen presence that seemed as male as the deep voice, she drank it dry. She closed her eyes, letting the enchanted water slide down her throat—and gasped when a man’s hand covered her mouth. He was behind her. She could not see him and she dared not scream.

You must be quiet.

He took his hand off her mouth, and she whispered a reply in her own language. “Who are you?”

Shall I reveal myself?

“Yes.”

The intruder came around to stand before her. Clad in black rags, his body was outlined by the same bluish light she had glimpsed in the fountain’s depths. His eyes, blacker than midnight, held that unearthly light as well.

Yasmina was spellbound. Yet she could still hear the distant chatter of other women within the harem walls and could still see and smell the smoke of the nargileh, the many-armed water pipe they shared to be sociable, drifting out into the air. Silent and lonely though she was, she would be missed. And she would be found with him.

His bold stance and the tight wrappings around his strong legs left her no doubt that he could easily overpower her. He was tall, far taller than any man she had ever seen, with the sensual grace of a panther and an air—a very odd air—of courteous menace.

Come with me.

“I cannot.”

No one will see us. There is a door—a secret door. It leads to another garden.

“This garden is my refuge. I have walked here scores of times, in the sun and under the moon. There is no door.”

For answer, he reached out his hand to her. Yasmina took it, lifted to her feet with magical lightness.

You need not be afraid. The women inside will not miss you for a while longer. I have seen to that.

She followed him. She had no choice. The ragged man raised a dagger from his girdle of black rags and stabbed it into the stone wall. The stone gushed forth a river of blood that ran down to the roots of the white roses, which bent and sighed, filling with blood until they were crimson. A door appeared behind them, carved in an intricate pattern and inlaid with mosaic.

Now do you believe?

“Yes,” she whispered. “But what is your name? What may I call you?”

Rustem. It is not my name but you may call me that. He took her hand and pushed aside the red roses. She glimpsed blood on his skin where he touched them, and she shuddered.

“I did not know roses could bleed.”

All living things bleed, Yasmina. But I do not.

He drew the tip of the dagger along his neck. A wound appeared and closed up again, quickly. She gave a little cry.

It is kind of you to feel pain for me. I cannot.

“Is there nothing that you feel?” He pushed the climbing roses farther away from the door.

Loneliness. And for a little while you and I shall keep that at bay. Enter.

He drew her through the secret door into a garden she had never seen. It was much like the one in which she walked, though hers lay in shadow, and this one shimmered with light.

It boasted something her garden did not: a small pavilion, strung with pierced lamps, in one corner. On its floor were cushions of silk. A young woman, naked, sat upon them and strummed an oud, singing melodies that hung in the air and repeated themselves. Yasmina came closer. The singer’s flesh was transparent, her body as insubstantial as the notes of her song.

A ghost. She cannot see or hear you. But the music is pretty.

The transparent singer rose and floated to a different part of the hidden garden, where birds had begun to echo her melodies. They flew over the wall and she flew away with them, abandoning the two mortals who had dared to intrude upon her music-making.

Yasmina sighed with relief. Her companion motioned her to sit beside him on the cushions, offering her more water in another goblet of ice, and unfamiliar fruit. She refused both.