The Blue Hour

Chapter 14: Hamid

Sunday came around and Murad sent his Master-of-the-Chambers to announce his departure to the falconry. Hamid bathed in the hammam and asked Jurad's replacement to prepare his clothes. The eunuch performed Jurad's tasks as if he'd always been there. He brought the silver pitcher with cool water for Hamid to wash his hands before morning prayer, made sure he got his coffee just the way he liked it with a spoon full of sugar, directed the eunuchs who served him breakfast - only a little yoghurt with honey, no cheese.

Dressed, he stumbled down the stairs, and out into the garden. Murad's expression shifted from relief to anguish to spite: "Oh, there you are. So you are feeling better," he said.

"Yes," Hamid said and looked to the sky, momentarily blocked by an unease he sensed on the rare occasions when he and his brother were left alone, as if it was, somehow unnatural. It was midday, the sun had broken through the clouds, blurring the sea and the sky into a brilliant light which stung the eyes. Murad's bird was already flying east, along the coast.

"You've started without me," he said.

"I didn't think you'd come." Murad waved his empty glass. An agha filled it up with champagne. He emptied it in one go and requested another. Murad's unshaved face told him he was in a binge, and he fought an urge to leave.

"The Valide cursed me, you know," Murad slurred.

"It's just superstition, it isn't real. She probably cursed me too."

Murad turned away, his lips twitching.

The falconer brought forth Hamid's goshawk. Her huge taloned feet grasped the perch. Hamid reached out an arm and the bird stepped onto the thick leather glove which reached the elbow, gracefully, her shape long and hunched. A bell around the ankle jingled. When he removed the protective, black hood the bird moved nervously on his wrist, startled perhaps by the sudden light or by their voices. With his free arm, he reached into a bucket for food, the dead bodies of mice and squirrels, which he served her. She swallowed them whole. He whistled. The bird leapt into the air.

Murad put down his glass, they exchanged a smile and craned their heads.

There were times - not many - when Hamid was glad to be a member of the Osman dynasty. As the hawk turned and sailed along the coast towards the Sea of Marmara, it struck him this might be one of them. The grey bird was a rare breed worthy of an Ottoman prince, brought to him from the Arabian Peninsula as a gift from Peresto. During the long years in the 'cage', he had domesticated her while she had moulded him into her image. A crossbreeding of sorts. She was everything he had ever wanted to be: self-possessed, strong, wild. To tame her, he had to learn to wait and to watch like a hawk. Watch for the slightest change in her posture to read the state of her mind. He felt what she felt, saw what she saw; he learnt to lose himself in her.

He blinked. With the sun on his face, the sound of bustling leaves and chirping birds and water flowing in the fountain, he felt almost as free as the bird far out at sea.

A question from Murad jolted him out of his reverie. "You really think he's gone back to his native lands?"

"Native lands," Hamid asked. In an instant, his soul shrivelled and he waved his hand in a helpless gesture.

"Your Master of the Chambers, Jurad. It is said he has escaped the palace to return to his family."

"Oh." Hamid squinted into the sun. "I hope so."

"You do?" And when Hamid did not respond, "You didn't want him to leave." And again, "I don't believe it."

"What don't you believe?" Hamid mumbled.