While Yamina had cried bitterly at the thought of losing someone she loved, she was well aware that the other women in the house were smiling. When they talked about Mihri, they said that it was fitting that she should be in the one place where her beauty would be appreciated.

It was her father who had made Yamina see that for Mihri, like so many other girls, it was the chance of a lifetime.

“How could she bear it?” Yamina had asked passionately. “To be one of three hundred others, to have to pray and hope that she will attract the Sultan’s attention, yet knowing how heavily the odds were against her! And even if he does notice her, the others will be jealous, hating her for being preferred.”

“I have a feeling that women are much the same the world over,” her father answered with a smile. “They all want to attract the attention of men and in every country they hope to make an advantageous marriage. For Mihri to become an Ikbal, one who has caught the Royal eye, will, I am quite sure, be the summit of her ambition in life.”

“Mihri is intelligent,” Yamina retorted angrily. “I taught her to read and write. She can speak a little English, her French is good and I suppose now she will have learnt Turkish.”

“She would find it difficult to communicate with a large number of the people in the harem unless she does so,” her father replied. “But the Sultan speaks both French and English so, where he is concerned, she will find herself at an advantage over many of her rivals.”

“I doubt if any of them will be as beautiful as Mihri,” Yamina said hotly.

She knew now that she had been right.

If Mihri was an Ikbal – an established favourite – there was always the chance that sooner or later she might become a Kadin or wife of the Sultan and what Eastern woman could ask for more?

As an Ikbal, Mihri must now have a certain amount of power and that meant that she could ensure her safety from persecution not only in the harem but at the hands of the Sultan himself.

There would be no other man to trouble her, Yamina thought, and she was well aware that, if it came to a competition with a Circassian, she would not in Turkish eyes be thought to have a chance.

Mihri’s fair hair and white skin were everything that an Eastern Potentate would find alluring.

“I shall be safe in more ways than one!” Yamina told herself reassuringly.

Then, as if she could not bear to contemplate it any longer, she went upstairs to kneel once again beside her father in prayer.

Hamid did not return until very late.

Yamina was downstairs waiting for him, having cooked a meal for them both simply because she felt she must do something and found it difficult to sit patiently waiting.