“But the – harem!” Yamina murmured.
“Sahin say Mihri will pretend you her sister.”
Yamina rose to her feet and walked across the kitchen to stand at the open window.
Outside the sunshine was still brilliant on the flat roofs of the white houses, but the afternoon was drawing to a close. Soon night would fall – the soft velvet night of the Levant with great stars shining like diamonds in the sky.
There would be lights too on the Bosporus, the lights of the steamships moving into the Black Sea, carrying more men to fight against the Russians who were still holding out at Sebastopol.
Soldiers, who sooner or later, Yamina thought clairvoyantly, would pierce the defences so that Sebastopol would fall and the Russians be humiliated.
Then at last there would be peace but until then she was
