Hyacinth heard the call to prayer and automatically swung his legs off the bed onto the floor. He sat up and rubbed his hand across his face.
With a crack of his shoulders he stretched his arms, and yawned. Through the latticed window he could make out the glimmer of early dawn. He bent down and with a practiced switch of his fingers flicked out the rug that lay rolled up beneath his bed. He settled onto the rug rather awkwardly, first one knee and then the other, and began to pray.
Five minutes later he rolled up the rug, stowed it under the bed, and shuffled into a pair of slippers. His toes were long and thin and they gripped the slippers as he waddled from his cell to the hammam.
For many years, Hyacinth had recognized his hammam hour each morning as the highlight of his day.
Now, turning his long, elegant feet under the hot water of the spigot, he almost wanted to hug himself. He had not one, but two delicious pleasures to rouse him from his sleep-not to mention prayers, he mentally added, uncertain whether prayers strictly constituted a pleasure or not.
After the bath-a little further treat, why not? The valide’s new slave, the woman Tulin, had introduced it to the court. The eunuchs at Topkapi were suffering a little from neglect when Tulin came to help the valide, for the luminaries of Hyacinth’s restricted world clustered around the sultan in his new palace at Besiktas. Gone were the armies of cooks who worked from dawn till dusk to serve the choicest tidbits to the happy few. Gone, too, the young women, their laughter, their idle chatter, and all the gossip that their activities and moods created. Hyacinth loved his mistress, but the valide could be demanding-and there were no distractions anymore. The division of the family had brought him the only sorrow he had ever really known. He had loved the soft women. He had loved their babies.
But Tulin was like a breath from the other world! Returning from her orchestra at Besiktas, she brought gossip from the harem-why, when she talked about those women, it was almost as if one knew them intimately oneself! Poor Pembe’s grief-that was just too sad. And Maral’s face, when she heard the news! Pouf! What a cow-but so lovely, of course. It was the Circassian blood. He, Hyacinth, knew all about Circassians.
And Tulin was young. She made the valide happy. Sometimes, when the valide wasn’t listening, Tulin would tell Hyacinth about the babies in the sultan’s harem, the little ones who ran about at their mothers’ knees, all their little jokes and funny names. The valide wasn’t interested in them, really, but Hyacinth couldn’t get enough. He used to be a favorite with the little ones, who pulled his lobey ears and ordered him about, sometimes, like sultans themselves. Quite innocent! Their sudden tempers and equally sudden smiles reminded him of-well, people like himself.
He dried himself and dressed with care. He shuffled quickly down the corridor and out into the valide’s courtyard.
Tulin’s door, he saw with rising expectation, was ajar. And now he could smell it, too.
“Hello, my dove!” He peered around the door, smiling, and waggled his fingers. “Am I too early for you?”
She looked up and smiled. “I saw you going to the hammam, Hyacinth efendi. And I thought-he’ll be an hour! At least an hour.”
She raised her eyebrows, and Hyacinth chuckled.
“So you are in perfect time.”
With a bow, and the same radiant smile, she offered him a steaming bowl of chocolate.