Haseki Mihrişah Sultan| Not To Be Continued

A Night With The Sultan

Sometimes, there is that feeling of fear and insecurity mixed together. It feels like you can hardly breathe, and your mind is not thinking straight. Although when you drink a sip of water or take deep breaths, you understand that there is nothing to worry about. You understand that what once you thought was an obstacle you couldn't overcome, it was, in fact, just a bad dream. It's just a fake reality. Something that it would hardly happen. It's almost impossible to happen. Then you begin to smile softly because you know the bad is far away while the good is near. After a while, your mind falls into darkness again, and no straight thoughts seem to be produced out of it. How can I explain what I feel. I feel like drowning of like I'm swimming, but my tentatives go to waste.
That's exactly how I felt wen Fatma Sultan, my lady, my "owner", my Sultana, to whom I'm really thankful and grateful to, all of sudden, out of nowhere, threw me, her servant, her maid, her flower of spring, into her brother's bed. I swear to God my heart started beating like crazy. I could not process anything. It felt like time stopped for a while. I looked around and pointed to myself as if I wanted to know my crime for being punished this way.
True, there is no crime. Therefore, there is no punishment. How would you explain that to my heart? How would you make my brain understand all this? Because the whole perception that I was free, locked up unwillingly together with dozens of other people, but still free, was created within me, and now all I had to do was live the results of my ignorance, stupidness and naivety.
Many girls would risk it all to be in my shoes. Many girls were like me, abandoned by fate, by destiny, and they had to make their own destiny. This was the only choice was to forget about living for yourself, but for another man, your owner, the Sultan, to whom you will bear children, to whom you will fall down on your knees do you want or not to.
But I am Natalya, a sixteen years old girl who witnessed the murder of her entire village and family by the enemy. Who was bought and sold like a slave, with no choice, no freedom to speak her mind, to act as I want to or even to disagree. I am Natalya, renamed Gülbahar by my mistress as a reward for the accomplishment of the duties I was ordered to do. After more than two months in the Topkapi Saray, the palace of the Ottoman Empire, part of Sultan Murad's famous Harem, what many call luck finally knocked in my door and the opportunity finally landed in front of me.
Was I going to mess it up like many others? Or was I going to try to succeed not only to help those who have been good to me, but to help myself by finding a better way to survive.

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The sun was setting, and the hour was near. Haci Agha and Lalezar Kalfa took me to the make-up and wardrobe chamber that was on the upper floor of the Corridor of Concubines. As I was climbing the stairs, I felt a thousand eyes looking at me. I arrived there, sat down, and a few other girls slowly started to make my hair and put some powder on my face. I could tell this wasn't their first time, and they were really good at this.
One girl put out of a closet in the chamber, three dresses: one pink, one red and one white. Lalezar Kalfa picked the pink one while Haci Agha, the white one. They both looked towards me, asking to choose, and I chose the white one. It was simpler, and if the Sultan didn't like me, he was not going to call me back, which would be exactly what I wanted. The other girls helped me get dressed, and when I thought it was all done, they put perfume on me. It was a really sweet fragrance who smelled like peach, roses, and vanilla orchid. I made one step forward to go, but they had one final thing to add, what I thought that it was a necklace, but in fact and tiara made of gold and surrounded by green emeralds. Everything was so good and beautiful however I wasn't sure if it was worth it. That depended by me, though.
We walked down the stairs but didn't pass through the hallway as always, but turned left in another small corridor I hadn't frequented much. This one led to a few other and then a few others. Haci Agha and Lalezar Kalfa together with two of the girls who helped me and two Harem guards were accompanying me.