The Drowning Guard: A Novel of the Ottoman Empire by Linda Lafferty

throne.”
    “So your brother was in love with you when you were only a child. Is that why he indulges you so?” asked Ivan Postivich.
    “Love?” She laughed and threw a pale hand over her eyes, remembering. “What is love, janissary? Such an ignorant word, so silly a passion. There is no such luxury as romantic love in the Imperial Harem, let alone for a princessand prince who share the same father. But my brother cared for me and understood my tempers and ambitions, just as I understood his. It was the same with cousin Selim, who was older and first to ascend the throne, but in so many ways, more tender and compassionate. Still, all of these human emotions must vanish when a prince becomes a sultan. They must, as it is said, ‘Else an Ottoman prince is butchered under the falling leaves of a lime tree.’ ”
    Esma Sultan yawned deeply, covering her mouth with a delicate white hand, streaked with shadows of blue veins. She stood up and walked to the windows to see the first light of dawn creeping through the bottom of the shutter. She opened the heavy wooden shutters and the rising sun flooded the space where she stood. She took a deep breath and smiled.
    “Why do you smile, Sultane?”
    “I smile because all I smell on the morning wind is the taste of salt and my jasmine from the garden, still wet with dew. Speaking to you has temporarily overpowered the efrits and djinns that come up from the waters to haunt me, janissary. I think myself capable of rest until evening falls again.”
    Ivan Postivich shrugged, examining his coarse, scarred hands. He couldn’t understand how his company could have kept the murdered souls at bay. The Sultaness wrinkled her forehead as she looked out over the Bosphorus.
    “I wonder if the pagan rites of Christianity may have some superstitions that are useful to the Faithful,” she murmured. “Perhaps the old doctor is correct in his remedy.”
    “I am no priest, Esma Sultan.”
    She turned again to the janissary and lifted her chin.
    “I think you have done your work for today. I will allow you to return to the palace barracks. You are to be relieved from your regular duties. I want you to come at midnight each night, to accompany me through the dark hours when the smell is so overpowering. I shall sleep during the day—I shall instruct Saffron to see that your schedule matches my needs.”
    The giant rose, his gaze fastened not on the Sultane but on the far side of the room.
    “Before I leave, Sultaness, I have one favor to ask you to quench my curiosity.”
    Her eyes hardened and he noticed a quickening of the muscles around her pale lips.
    “Speak, janissary. But do not tire me with requests.”
    He walked over to the east wall of the room.
    “This—” he called over to her, pointing to a painting of horses and riders on a gold background. “Could you please tell me about this painting?”
    Her mouth relaxed and she smiled, her face suddenly younger in its softness.
    “That painting once hung in my father’s chambers at Topkapi.” She walked towards it, her silk slippers rasping on the mat. “He gave it to me on my eleventh birthday on one condition. Upon my death, I must return it to Topkapi as it is an Ottoman heirloom. It is precisely what you think it is—a polo game.”
    The giant nodded, studying the painting.
    “The Master of the Horses told me of paintings like these,” he said. “I never thought I would see one with my own eyes.”
    Esma Sultan cocked her head and looked at him with interest.
    “Yes, it is quite magnificent. Do you notice anything unusual about the players?”
    “A light hand on the reins, perhaps. Youth and delicacy, but exhibiting confidence. These beardless ones must be Janissaries.”
    Esma Sultan laughed. “O, ignorant janissary! Half of them are women!”
    Ivan Postivich opened his eyes wide, looked from the Princess to the painting and back to the Princess again.
    “Women on the polo field?”
    “Yes, of course,” she