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flesh, pushing and insistent. Leon imagined she enjoyed these encounters. And so she did, but not in the way he thought. Their grapplings were a welcome respite from scrubbing pots and dipping candles. In Leon’s bed her mind could wander. She could dream of the country, of hills and wheat ripening in the sun, of orchards heavy with cherries, peaches, and apples. Of her future.
    From the pile of rags in the corner she took a long strip of muslin and tied his jaws together, heedless of whether his tongue was tucked into the back of his throat. She poured herself a glass of wine from a jug on the floor and drank it down. Then, crossing herself, she fumbled about under the shroud and, head turned aside, stuffed balled-up bits of rag into his orifice.
    Cesca searched his room for the knife she knew he kept there. She picked it up. With the tip of the blade, she nudged his phallus into the valley between his legs, below the soft hillock of his belly. Then she gave it a jab. Leon had no more use for it than he had for his ducats. A pretty little farm in Bassano del Grappa, just a few rolling hectares. What an obedient little donkey I appear to be, Cesca thought—one of those biddable beasts who labours without complaint for years for the pleasure of kicking my master once.

CHAPTER 5

Imperial Palace Constantinople
    CROUCHING ON THE ledge with the knife upraised, Leah slashed at her head with jerky, erratic movements. She flung down more and more hair to join the pile on the floor, pausing only long enough to hurl a curse at Hannah in Hebrew to the effect that Hannah and all of her family were the offspring of promiscuous, fornicating pigs who rutted without regard to prohibited degrees of consanguinity.
    “It is a delight to hear Hebrew spoken so fluently,” said Hannah. She had an idea. “I know what it is like to be a stranger in a strange land.” Was it her imagination or had the girl lowered the knife a little? Hannah was afraid tomove, but spoke in a steady voice, eyes fixed on the girl. “Like you, I came to this city because I had no choice. It was difficult at first—the language, Osmanlica, from which all vowels have been stolen, the odd provender stuffed with pistachio nuts and cinnamon, the Sephardic Jews who are so different from the Ashkenazi that they hardly seem to be Jews at all. But I have made my life here and so must you. Every day will become easier, until one day you will regard the harem as your home. You will be taught many things—embroidery, the rules of etiquette, not to point one’s feet toward one’s elder, never to speak first to one’s superior. You will, in time, become accustomed to your new surroundings.” How hypocritical Hannah felt urging such a life. The harem offered luxury and privilege, petting and cosseting, but would Hannah want such a life for her daughter should she be blessed with a girl one day? To be pampered but to be as useless as the flightless silk moths Isaac carried on heavy trays to the garden—fluttering, quivering, diaphanous creatures that beat their wings in the afternoon sun, then spun their cocoons and died at night?
    Could the odalisques not be taught something more useful than never-ending embroidery to decorate cloths that required no further embellishment? Every scrap of fabric in the harem was replete with idealized landscapes of pavilions, gardens, cypress trees and water, birds, tulips, carnations, trailing vines and peacocks, fruits and nuts. To expend such time and patience on items destined for a baby’s bottom or for the declivity between a woman’s legs as a menstrual pad! It all seemed such a waste.
    “Will I be taught to write Osmanlica? I would like that,” Leah said, finally lowering her knife.
    “Mustafa does not permit it.” He would not condescend to give a reason, not that anyone would dare ask, but Hannah had guessed: he feared the girls would write love letters, tie them to pomegranates from the trees in the garden, and toss them