The Blue Hour

Chapter 25: Hamid

By midnight, Peresto had managed the impossible. Midhat Pasha had granted Hamid permission to leave the palace for the first time in ten years. Officially, to congratulate his sister Cemile on the birth of her son, his godson. But not even Cemile's home was safe. The Valide would likely have planted a spy in her the household.

"I have arranged for you to stay with Reshid in Galata," she said as she bid him farewell. He stifled a gasp.

"You disagree," she asked with worried eyes.

"No, it makes sense." If it was unimaginable to him that he should violate the sacred Osmanli privileges by setting foot in the home of a common man, it would be even more so to the Valide. How many days before they would track him to Reshid's home? A day at most, before he was missed in the palace? Another day or two before the Valide's spies realised he never arrived in Cemile's home? After that, however long it took to make Peresto speak.

As if reading his thoughts, Peresto said: "One of Cemile's servants will take your place. Feigning illness he will not leave his room, and Cemile will serve him personally. It should buy us a few more days, a week perhaps, before the Valide understands." She shifted uneasily. "There is no time to loose."

His heart quickened. "Midhat agreed to this?"

"Midhat doesn't know the details. I sent Mustafa with the request. It was too risky to put the truth in writing in case my note was intercepted, so I used the birth of Cemile's son as an excuse. Midhat signed the pass. As soon as you are safely arrived in his home, Reshid will meet with him to explain."

"Reshid," he asked faintly.

"The Valide's spies are watching me. Any deviation from my daily routine could provoke suspicion. They won't suspect Reshid."

He nodded and gave her a weary smile. "What if Midhat Pasha refuses to act?"

"He must act." She gazed at him with glittering eyes. "He will act. Don't lose hope, Hamid. If you do, we are lost."

Mustafa accompanied him past the eunuch guards, through a backdoor he had not known existed, to the awaiting carriage. His fragile mood was soured by guilt for abandoning Murad. What if he had sat him down to talk about the situation? Peresto might not have forgiven him, but at least the blame for whatever came next would not be his.

He had obeyed Peresto, in part out of respect for her judgement in political matters. There were other reasons too for his acquiescence, more selfish and false. A misplaced resentment against Murad for his weakness, a lust to punish him for it, and also his own cowardly urge to flee. He was not proud to have these thoughts. In his shoes, would not Murad do the same? And if, against all odds, the coup succeeded and Murad became Sultan, would not that right this wrong?

As the carriage turned out the palace gates and swayed down the coastal road towards Galata, as the cleansing air filled his lungs and the twists and turns of the alleys of his morbid mind, his nerves steadied and he felt a smile emerge on his face. Without the eunuch guards, with only Hifsi next to him in the anonymous black carriage, he felt almost normal.

He pulled aside the curtain and looked inland, toward the glittering lights of Pera. In that instance, Flora's essence washed over him like a wave, and he felt the full weight of it, of having returned to his palace life without a thought to her wellbeing. He had, he realised, omitted to tell Peresto about her, though she had saved his life. He could only explain it as an irrational form of resistance, to shut Peresto out, to point his silent anger towards her as he often did, childishly blaming her. Or, perhaps he had omitted to evoke Flora's name in the palace - even the memory of her - as a way of protecting her.