Conscious that her heart was beating violently against her breast and her lips felt dry, Yamina waited.

Then suddenly walking towards her there came a man who she knew was the Chief Black Eunuch, the Kizlar Aga.

All she had read about the Sultan’s household made Yamina aware that he was by far the most important person in the new world she was entering alone and unprotected.

The Kizlar Aga’s power was absolute. He alone had the right to speak directly to the Sultan. He was at once Comptroller of the Household, Master of Ceremonies and the Sultan’s confidant.

He was in supreme control of the harem and the odalisques and in his hands lay the power of life and death.

He was entitled to have both eunuchs and girls as slaves for himself and was allotted as many as three hundred horses for his own use.

The Kizlar Aga was so large that he seemed almost to waddle rather than walk.

He wore a pelisse of red. His hat was like a huge white sugarloaf, worn on a slant at the back of his head.

He did not speak, but his eyes flickered over Yamina in an insolent manner, before he turned to lead her through several large rooms in which she could see cushions of sumptuous silks, stools and hangings of velvet worked in gold thread and set with precious stones, while the carpets of Ghiordes, Bergamo or Melés were the perfection of Turkish artistry.

But Yamina had little time to observe anything before she was shown into a room where there was only one woman and with a little exclamation of relief she saw that it was Mihri holding out her arms.

She ran towards the Circassian and, as they embraced, the door shut behind them and Yamina realised that the Black Eunuch had left them alone.

“Mihri! Mihri!” she exclaimed. “How glad I am to see you!”

“And I you!” Mihri replied.

She glanced towards the door, then bent low over Yamina’s hand and kissed it.

“Forgive me,” she said in a very low voice, “but I embraced you because here they believe you to be my sister. It was the only way I could be sure that they would let you come to me.”

“I am only too glad to be your sister,” Yamina assured her.

“Then you will understand that I must address you by your name,” Mihri said. “They would think it strange if I address you in terms of respect as I did in the past.”

“You must take no risks,” Yamina said quickly. “What would they do to you, Mihri, if they thought you had deceived them?”

Mihri gave her an enigmatic smile and Yamina thought that she was even more beautiful than she had been two years ago.

Her entari was buttoned by huge diamonds and belted by a wide heavy girdle, which was a mosaic of precious stones.