“Allah be with you, Mistress – we shall meet again.”

He spoke in a manner that was prophetic and Yamina longed to believe him.

But how could they meet again? How would she ever see him, she wondered? Dear Hamid, who had been so kind and helpful, who had saved her father from being captured by the British and both of them from being imprisoned by the Turks.

Last night she had said to him,

“Perhaps when there is peace, if I have not been able to escape from the harem, my relatives can buy my freedom.”

Even as she spoke, she knew that it was a forlorn hope.

What money could her family offer that would be of any interest to a Sultan?

And who had ever heard of anyone who had once entered the gates of the harem returning from behind its locked doors?

But it was too late to tell her fears to Hamid and she was only glad that she could leave him enough money to live on until he could find work.

“Don’t worry, Mistress,” Hamid begged her. “With the war there are a hundred different jobs I can get tomorrow. Young men are fighting, the old ones must take their place.”

Yamina knew this was true. Everywhere in Constantinople there were notices offering employment to workmen of every sort and description and Hamid was a skilled man.

“I also have relatives in Constantinople,” Hamid said. “They have not seen me for some years, but the blood tie is there. I can stay with them until I find employment.”

Hamid was taken care of, Yamina thought, and now she had only herself to worry about.

She was taken to a side door of the Palace, where the chair was set down and the curtains pulled back.

It was then that she saw Sahin!

She had not seen him since she was a child and for a moment she found it hard to recognise him.

He still had the handsome features that she had never forgotten, his skin was still white, his hair fair but like all Eunuchs he had grown fat and it was hard to remember the slim athletic boy who had been abducted from their estate nine years ago.

Sahin made her a slight obeisance, then, beckoning her, he took her along a narrow passage and up a staircase which Yamina could see through her veil looked quite ordinary.

Then they reached what she knew must be the door of the harem.

The locks and hinges were superior examples of the metalsmith’s craft. Made of bronze, they were damascened with gold and silver, and the key, which a Black Eunuch brought from his belt at the sight of Yamina, was of gold encrusted with jewels.

As he turned it in the lock, Sahin faded away into the shadows for the White Eunuchs were not allowed into the Holy of Holies, the harem itself.