A Day’s Dreams

It was still dark when the shaking woke him. “It’s time!” whispered the eunuch. The prince’s dry eyes shot open, despite the tight discomfort thanks to a night of deep slumber. He bolted upright in bed, a delayed response that registered this was the moment his mother had been preparing him for since he was a little boy. The eunuch helped him dress in the dark, and together they tiptoed in silence through the corridors to reach the room prearranged for him to wait until it was safe to announce to the whole empire that he was the next sultan. After the door was locked, the prince squinted his eyes to take in his temporary golden cage. Though the ornate tiles were not yet visible, he remembered them clearly in his mind’s eye from the day of his circumcision. He did not know in advance that this would be the safe room, only realizing when he passed the telltale fountains. His mother had put everything in order because her goal in life was to shield him until (and for as long as) he sat on the throne. For several months, she had been whispering about his father’s decline in health, and of the ministers she had been trading messages through the network of eunuchs whose allegiances were always dubious. Navigating life in the harem and general palace was complicated business — best left to the women to sort it out.

He rarely left the harem, where he grew up around women, raised by them and the black eunuchs who were the…