Haseki Mihrişah Sultan

Outside the Walls

The day began as always. Lalezar Kalfa entered the hall, clapping her hands and shouting for us to wake up. Slowly, we put our heads off our pillows and our bodies of our mattresses yawning and stretching.
- I don't want to do this, - said the girl next to me, named Ardita.
- C'mon, get up, - I said as I was trying to lift her up.
Eventually, we all got up and started tiding the place. Each girl fixed her own beds and then a few others went to take small tables and cushions while some others went to the kitchens to take the food.
- I heard your Sultana was going out today. Are you going with her too? - Ardita asked, picking up a cushion and putting it next to another.
- Hopefully. She hasn't told me anything yet, - I answered, putting a small table in the middle of those two.
- Wait, - Clara who as always shown up like a ghost behind us, said, - are you going out or not?
- I don't know, - and in the same time raised my shoulders.
- Queen Mother is also going to accompany Fatma Sultan, so if you are going to come tell me so I can be with you, - she explained to me.
I nodded, and we continued serving the foods for breakfast.
I had noticed something in the girls that I would stay with. They all had grown mature in this place. They all had learned the language, well not all of it, learned the places, seen different people and had become professionists at what each of them considered hard in the beginning. Now, if one Agha or kalfa would come to us to order us to do something, we had done it before she would even tell us. We weren't confused in situations anymore. We had gotten used to this place and had adapted to it. At the end of the day, we didn't have any choice. Many of us came from slave marketplaces, and these life conditions we had here were way better than the ones we would have if luck didn't knock in our door. I liked this progress, and I liked the fact that it had an influence in me too.
There weren't many girls in the courtyard except me and a few others who had gathered together and were chatting and laughing. This was practically what life in Harem meant to them. A closed place were plots and intrigues blossomed.
I walked from there in a couple of tiny corridors, turned left in a hall, then again left, then right. Right next to the door of the chambers where maids and aghas stayed, I saw Lalezar Kalfa.
- Ah, Gülbahar, has anything happened? - she asked soon as she saw me.
- No, Lalezar Kalfa. I wanted to ask you if I was chosen to go out together with Fatma Sultan and the other girls? - I asked, trying not to show that I was anxious.
- Well, haven't you been told? Yes, you are also going to go.
Exactly at that moment, I felt my heart from racing to slowly calming down. A smile was formed in my face. The sweat in my hands dried and I felt relieved.
- Thank you, Lalezar Kalfa! - I said excitedly and kissed her in the both cheeks from the joy.
Quickly, I rushed to the Concubines Corridor to tell the other girls and make the preparations. Of course, they got happy when I told them the news. I didn't know what exactly to take with me. I just changed my dress, put on some borrowed perfume, and wore a black robe.
Fatma Sultan passed by in front of the Concubines' Corridor and I joined the group of the maids that were accompanying her. We walked from there in a small door that led to a passageway who had, in the end, another door. From there, we arrived at the courtyard from which I recalled entering the first time I came in this palace. Only this time we didn't follow the same road, walking forward to the second big gate and then to the big square, but we walked immediately right. There, in the side of the building, was a big gate guarded by two Harem guards, but armed. Soon as they saw the Sultana, they opened the gate, which showed another big gate, but this time guarded by actual soldiers. They opened the gate before turning their backs to us as we came closer. All this time, the Harem armed guards stayed aside of us until we got in our carriages.
The carriage in which I got in had two other girls about my age, and an eunuch dressed as a civilian, although I hadn't seen any of them before. The carriage started moving, and I felt a weird sensation in me. Silence reigned there in the carriage, and no one felt like wanting to talk. We were just strangers to each other, and all we did was stare each of us coldly.
After a while, I became bored by all this and decided to take a look outside the curtain of the carriage. I saw dozens of people walking in the street, which reminded me of the time I came in the capital. Then there were also the stores and the shops on the side of the road, which, as I remembered, still had many clients. Now the speed with whom the carriage was moving had slowed down. The road must've been spoiled because we were wobbling a lot.
Finally, we stopped. I was so excited, so I hurried and got our immediately. In front of me I saw that Fatma Sultan and the Queen Mother had also gotten out. They walked forward, with us the maids following them, surrounded by those eunuchs in my carriages and two others, who looked more masculine.
I couldn't believe my eyes. I hadn't seen so many products in a marketplace at the same time. In one store, you could see carpets, rugs, mats, with all sorts of decorations and figures embroidered on them.

In another, there were plenty of lamps, lanterns and chandeliers made by some kind of material that provided illumination. God, they were so beautiful.

I was so captivated by the whole place. No wonder crowds of people gathered in here. We walked and walked, and I kept getting amazed. Ceramics, textiles, framed mirrors, and so many gemstone jewellery. All that gold and all that silver, all those necklaces and rings, and all kinds of fragrances that you could smell by just passing by each shop, made you feel like in another world.
Clara kept looking at me and smiling once I a while. I am sure that this wasn't her first time out. All the time we were covering our faces with a piece of cloth of our dress, but you could tell from my eyes that I wasn't mentally there.
In Ruthenia I didn't have the chance to travel much. I remember that my parents once took us in the nearest city to our village, but that wasn't at all like Istanbul. There weren't many accessories, items, or even foods and spices as there were in here. Also the marketplaces there weren't as crowd as this one. If you counted all the people in here, they would make the whole population of my village.
Fatma Sultan and her mother would stop sometimes to see any fabrics or foods, but they never bought anything. The shop sellers would talk to them nicely even though they didn't know them, did they? They once engaged in a conversation with a woman asking her if she was satisfied with how the business was going.
- Honestly, dear Hanim, we don't have any complaints. Finally, my husband started a stable work, and my sons began school, - the woman said, smiling and putting her hands in her chest in a sign of gratitude, - I have no worries.
The two royal women were always talking to each-other and I noticed that when they passed by a beggar child, the Queen Mother signalled one of her maids and this last one stopped and started talking to the boy.
- What will happen to him? - I asked Clara.
She turned her head behind and then answered:
- Nigar Hatun will ask him about his name, age and any relatives. Then she will give him a bag of coins and tell him to take it to his relatives if he has any and to start school.
This kindness and generosity had begun to leave me speechless.
- Does this always happen? - I asked again, interrupting Clara's conversation with another girl.
- Most of the time, yes. Providing for other people who are not blessed with what we are, at least a bit of that, is a necessity in the Ottoman society. Of course, who has something to give, he can give it. No one is forced.
Maybe two or three hours passed, and it felt like we had seen all the city. Apparently, I was the only one who had started to get tired. The sun's light had turned into heat. Sweat was dripping in my forehead, my back and chest. Never had walked this much. We passed near Hagia Sofia. I quickly recalled how that was the only familiar thing I had when I first came in the city. Now there it was, releasing all her charm and glamour around. Our carriages awaited for us in a corner of the street. One by one, we all got in.
Don't know if all the walk was worth it, but I definitely felt like I had learned something today. Even to think that it was only lunchtime. While we were getting back in the Saray, the Muslim ezan began. An interrelation between the human and the divine gave strong heartbeats to my heart.
One thing I knew for sure, I was grateful that I was alive and that I was living this kind of life.