Such tales helped pass the long hours in the harem just as the setting out of the cards or the staring into a crystal ball brought a little ray of hope that Fate would be kind and the Sultan’s eye would turn from Mihri to one of his other women.
But Yamina found herself watching the Black Eunuch, listening to the whispers of the slaves and wondering if someone was plotting against her, against Mihri, against the Sultan himself!
Fear was always there like the hiss of a snake in the grass, sometimes so faint as to make her think that she had imagined it, at other times so real and poisonous that it was impossible not to tremble.
‘What shall I do?’ Yamina asked herself over and over again.
At night she would try to pray, but somehow the God who had been with her all her life seemed lost b
