The Slave Sultana 2 The Lone Right Of The Sultan

...He usually came this hour, usually right after His last prayer, in these precious hours when He wouldn't be surrounded by a legion of his Imams. For a moment she remembered their suspicious eyes, everyone of them with the same looks as they scrutinized over her in a spiteful, jealous gaze. Like old wives, and thought of them holding him back.

From her gaping shutters she heard men's quarrels, then a loud clattering of metal. She peered below her window into the marble courtyard, three men and a toppled brazier. Two were Janissaries, the Sultan's finest, one a middle aged veteran, bronzed and scarred, the other a younger fellow with reddish hair, both looked up, the third a palace vizier with white long whiskers and an elaborate robe. There was some emotion she wouldn't tell, stark and repressed. Though none of their bemused lust was so disguised.

A ring of negro palace slaves, with only their knees, crawled to the brazier with towels, their knee-skating forms wriggled between black carps and cautious mice, gathered around the spilled cinders and soundlessly began to pinch away the black stains on the white stone like a colony of ants.

-Then, all three men, as per their stations, lowered their helmed heads to her into a simultaneous bow.

She let her shutters spoke for her, a little annoyed that she was tussled by stranger's eyes like a scoop of meat. But then, a smile came to her face again, a smoldering hope reborn. It would be such a terrible distraction should her lover find ruffian's deeds ruining her main course smile.

The footstep stopped at her door, there was the jingling of golden locks and keys.