Haseki Mihrişah Sultan| Not To Be Continued

With The Sultan Again

I don't know if I am doing the right thing or not. I mean, I don't know if how my life is right now is the right way it should be. I could've found the chance to escape, but I didn't. Was this palace maybe too tempting? Was this future maybe too good in my blind eyes?
Now I understand. Not long ago, I bowed to them. Not long ago, I did not even want to look at them. Now, I am a candidate to be one of them. I am supposed to live here and die here. Everyone wants more and more freedom until they have none. Am I just a toy? Just someone who lives only to satisfy the others?
I do want to fall in love, absolutely. Also, to get married and have kids. To lay every night next to a man whose heart beats only for me and my heart beats only for him. Right here, in this place, this is impossible. There is no love. There is no freedom. There is only obedience and obligations. Orders and rules to be followed. Let the others gossip about you until those rumours don't damage you.
Gifts and jewels are so beautiful and so shiny, but they seem to not make me happy. Or I will be happy when I actually posses them? Sometimes, I think that I am stupid for not being like the others and not wanting what the others want. Then I realise that the sun shines equally upon every flower in this garden, but it depends on which flower uses its light more and which less. Which flower falls deep in naivety and loses, and which flower profits from its trickery and wins.
Was there even a war?

..............................................................

- Come in, - I heard his voice from the other side.
The doors opened, and I stepped forward in his chamber. Quickly, I threw a look around and then bowed to him. He came closer to me and lifted my chin up like he had done previously. He looked at me, and I looked at him. From this exchange of stares, I understood that something had happened. "Have I done something wrong?" I thought to myself. Before I began to speak, he walked away. I followed him slowly. He turned around and looked at me from head to toe.
- Why didn't you tell the kalfas and aghas that you have a new name? - he asked and kept looking at me with a cold stare.
- I am sorry Your Majesty, I had forgotten, - I said softly without wanting to make him angry.
- The Sultan gives you a new name, and you forget it? - he asked in a curious tone and raising an eyebrow, - How ordinary, - he then said.
This was the second night, and I understood that Sultan Murad was an interesting person. Not only was he the one with the most power and authority in here, but he also possessed the feature of being sarcastic at times. Rulers like that are not rare, but it isn't like you can find them everywhere.
- I am sorry again, Your Majesty, but the time I spent with you was too wonderful for me to remind anything else.
"Oh-oh.". Things like that you should not say to someone who has in his hands your fate. I felt him staring at me and before and I could open and close my eyes he was right next to me, with his right hand around my waist and his left one on my cheek.
- Really? - he asked, and I felt his breath tickling my face.
- Well..., - I started answering with my eyes, looking down, - even if it wasn't, there was no way I can know, right?
- What do you mean?
I took a deep breath and removed his hands from my body. I took a step back and said:
- I meant that I could not know if Your Majesty was really good at doing his...thing...because I...- suddenly in mid sentence, he raised his hand, and I stopped.
Right there, I begun praying to God in my mind to forgive me and to keep me safe. Hopefully, I had not offended him or made him angry. For God's sake, which girl sleeps with the Sultan and then tells him that he was good, but even if he wasn't, she can not know. Day by day, I am bringing myself closer to the danger.
He went and sat down on a couch, in front of a fireplace without fire, on the right side of the chamber. Then he gently patted in an empty place next to him. Insecure, I went and sat. His fingers touched my back, and from there went up to my hair. As his fingers were playing with my hair and I saw that he was smiling.
He leaned in a kissed my cheek. I blushed.
- How was your day? - he asked with such a soft voice that surprised me.
- My day? - I repeated, - Well I finally got the chance to meet your mother... I mean the Queen Mother, - I corrected myself, and he smiled even more.
- How was that experience? - he asked.
I didn't know if he really wanted to know, or he just wanted to spend a little time before getting in the action.
- It was wonderful. Her Highness is a really beautiful woman. She also seems very strong, - I said happily.
After hearing my words, he pulled himself away from me and laid back on the couch. The ceiling seemed to be the target of his eyes in those minutes of silence. I just kept staring at the empty fireplace and then at the snacks that were in the little table in front of us. I pulled out my hand to get a chestnut, but he looked at me right away, and I dropped the chestnut in the bowl.
- You can take it, - he said and took the bowl and handed it to me.
- Thank you, Your Majesty, - I said, and again, our eyes locked.
- Call me Murad.
Is it just me, or is this getting too normal? Maybe he just needs someone to talk to. Or maybe he has started to actually like me. Is the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire trying to make me his friend?
- What should I call you? - he then asked, caressing my left cheek with his hand.
Apparently, he is really caring.
- Call me Natalya, - I said and continued when he looked at me confused, - that is my real name, my birth name.
While talking, he took a glass from the table and filled it şerbet from the pot. I accepted it politely. Again, silence followed. He looked at me after every sip I took, and I was feeling a bit uncomfortable.
- My mother said that I should go hunting for a while, - he finally spoke, - do you want to come with me?
Me and the Sultan out of the Harem? Hunting? Now I am really sure that he has gone crazy. He doesn't even know me. I am not even that beautiful or seductive or whatever he thinks I am. Why does he want to take me?
Of course, it would be good to go out and see another environment. But not with the Sultan. I don't even know how to hunt.
- Even if I said no you still would take me, so I'm saying yes, - I said, and the smile he had faded.
- I am not forcing you, - he replied, and now the expression in his face had changed, - I know you have no choice but to say yes, but I am still asking you. Be grateful for my mercy, hatun.
Well done, Natlya or Gülbahar or Gülbeyaz or whatever my name is. You lost your greatest chance. Now you are going to eat all those words you said about not disappointing anyone who supported you. I am no one, and I still think I am someone. Should I be cuffed and prisoned to know that I am wrong? It is even crazy to think that I can do what I just did. If I heard that another girl had done this, I would pray for her life to continue.
- I am sorry Your...
- I know you are, - he interrupted me.
Then Sultan Murad sighed and got up. He went in the end of his room, opened the doors that were there, and turned around.
- Get ready and wait for me on the bed.
And just like that he got out on the balcony.

..............................................................

Next morning, I woke up by myself, but this time I saw Murad, I mean, the Sultan, that was still sleeping. Trying not to wake him up, I took my clothes, dressed up, and got out of the chamber. When I arrived in the Harem, there was Lalezar Kalfa, who took me aside and said that my clothes were taken upstairs: to the Favourites Floor. It was undeniable now that everyone was going to know that one of the girls who had expressed the dislike she had for the Sultan, openly, spent the night with him.
I know that they will talk, and that does not bother me, but I do not trust myself. I am afraid that somehow this change will actually change me, and based on how aggressive I can get, I might end up like the two Sultanas who fought each-other.
I didn't want to get upstairs immediately, so I decided to take a walk. As I was passing on each hall and corridor, I would see maids and guards some saluting each-other while some continuing their work. Just to think that once, a while ago, I had aspirations of becoming one of them. I took a turn right, and in the corridor, I saw Meltem Sultan accompanied by her maids.
She didn't look at all like before. Now, all the charm she once possessed had left and was replaced with downcast, sadness, and sorrow. Only by looking at her eyes you could see how joyless she was. The reason was that she was being exiled. After the Sultan learned about this by Kösem Sultan, the Queen Mother, she advised him that the best solution would be punishing both the Sultanas. Since this was not the first time Meltem Sultan had showed her insolence, she was being exiled to a saray called the Palace of Tears, while Ayşe Sultan was going to be paid half of her monthly salary, for a year.
Soon as I saw her, she looked at me too.

All of us started walking towards each-other. When we got close I bowed to her.
- Gülbahar Hatun, - Meltem Sultan said, and I could see that even her voice had changed, - how are you?
- I am feeling well, Sultanim. Thank you.
In moments like this you have to be nice even to the people you don't like. Maybe one day the misfortune that happened to them might happen to you.
- I heard that His Majesty had spent the night with you. You must be worth it, - she said and I saw that her eyes had no sign of irony or jealousy.
Did she really change.
- I am here only to do my duty, Sultanim, nothing else, - I replied.
I did not want to seem like I was pretending I did not want the opportunity of being the consort of the most powerful man in the world. I really did not want it.
- Have this advice from me: 'Hold your friends close, but your enemies even closer'. You will never know anyone until you see everyone's true face, - she said and patted my shoulder, gently giving a faint smile.
Respectfully, I smiled back to her.
- Wish you all the best Sultana, - but she rolled her eyes and looked at me in distrust, - I really do.
After this she carried on going her direction while I mine. Poor woman! She wasn't leaving only many years of her life behind, but also her son. The infant Şehzade Selim was going to stay without his mother. He wasn't going to feel her love only because of her mistakes. Every injustice has a reason, but when that reason is made obvious, the injustices turns into retribution. My mother and father raised me well. I will not disappoint them. If they were alive and heard that their daughter was throwing away everything they taught her, they would never forgive themselves for not educating her right. But I have pride, and I have honour.
Not only sleeping once or twice with the Sultan, but even if I become the Sultan himself, I will not forget where I came from and all that I was taught.