Every woman dreamed of achieving power, of having the Sultan under her sway, for it was well known that the Monarchs of the Ottoman Empire were all ruled by the women they loved.

After Mihri had been spirited away, Yamina had often thought of her and longed to know how she was faring, besides the fact that she had missed her as a companion and someone young to talk to.

“How could it be possible for me to see Mihri?” she asked Hamid now.

“You will not be angry, Mistress, but Mihri knows that you are here.”

“She does? But how can that be?”

“You remember Sahin?” Hamid enquired.

Yamina thought for a moment.

“But of course. He also was kidnapped by the agents of the Sultan. I remember my father talking about him and being very angry, but I was young at the time, only ten years old.”

“Sahin became a White Eunuch!” Hamid said.

“A eunuch?”

There was a note of horror in Yamina’s voice.

Her father had told her that the practice of employing eunuchs was not adopted until the middle of the fifteenth century.

“Despotism and polygamy,” he explained, “created the necessity for eunuchs.”

Later she learnt that the supplying of unfortunate boys to satisfy the demand of the Turks for eunuch guards was a trade in itself.

Few survived the operation, from which they were left to recover or die, buried up to their wrists in the burning sands.

White Eunuchs, like white female slaves from Circassia or Greece, fetched high prices.

“Sahin is also powerful,” Hamid said, “but not as powerful as Mihri, for White Eunuchs have no longer the power of the Black.”

“You have seen Sahin?”

“I have seen him, Mistress, and because I can trust him I told him where we were and he has told Mihri.”

Yamina sat down in a chair, but her eyes were on Hamid’s face.

“Mihri says come to her. She keep you safe and hide you until peace come.”

Hamid paused.

He saw that Yamina’s eyes were wide with astonishment.

She could hardly believe what she was hearing was true. Then with a helpless gesture Hamid added,

“There is no one else. Nowhere for you to go, Mistress, and there is only a little money left.”

Yamina drew in her breath.

When they had first escaped from Balaclava, it had seemed to her that the money Hamid had brought with them would be enough to last for years.

But during the war food had become overpriced. There had also been the expensive luxuries she had been forced to purchase for her father.

He had never drunk anything but the best wine and sometimes when his breathing was not troubling him, he would long for a cigar.