“I could never be angry with you, Hamid,” Yamina replied. “After all you have done for me, after everything you did for the Master, I shall always be eternally in your debt.”

“Then I have been thinking,” Hamid said, “that you should go to Mihri until the War is over.”

“Mihri?” Yamina exclaimed in amazement. “But Mihri is in the harem of the Sultan!”

“I know, Mistress, but she has become very important, she is now an Ikbal.”

Yamina looked surprised.

She knew that an Ikbal meant an established favourite of the Sultan. Yet when she thought about it, it was not so astonishing, for Mihri had been very beautiful.

A Circassian – and Circassians were the women most sought after and favoured by all Eastern Potentates – Mihri had been abducted from their estate at Balaclava two years previously.

Yamina had been frantic at the time, furious that such a thing had happened, incensed that one of their own household should have suffered such treatment.

It was, however, impossible to arouse any indignation amongst their other employees or indeed amongst the inhabitants of the Crimea.

It was considered an honour for a girl to be taken to the Seraglio, and anyway, once abducted, there was nothing that could be done even if anyone had wished to protest.

Mihri’s family had been employed in Yamina’s house in Balaclava ever since it had been first built.

They had asked for work and had proved themselves to be such excellent servants, so honest and efficient, that Yamina had always thought of them as part of the family.

The Circassian women were noted for their beauty all over the East and the hierarchy of the harem in Constantinople was founded on the law that there should be no liaison between a Sultan and one of his subjects.

Women were therefore always recruited from outside, from Circassia, Georgia, Syria, Rumania and occasionally a European.

Succeeding Sovereigns therefore were always the sons of slave mothers and only half Turkish.

Agents of ‘The Porte’, as the Turkish Imperial Government was called, scoured Eastern Europe and the Levant for beautiful girls and the Circassians ranked first in desirability.

Afterwards Yamina thought that perhaps the beauty of Mihri, which was renowned locally, must somehow have reached the ears of the agents in Constantinople.

But it was in fact quite usual for raids to be made all along the South coast of Russia, and whatever the families or the authorities might say, it was very well known that the girls themselves were more than willing.

The odalisques were usually well treated, and once they were in the Seraglio there was always the glittering possibility of catching the eye of the Sultan.

The ultimate achievement, if they were beautiful or clever enough, was to become one of his four Kadins – or wives – sanctioned by the Prophet.