Gultamze

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INTRODUCTION
16th Century, the Ottoman Empire is under the reign of Süleyman I. aka Suleiman the Magnificent. He reigned the empire from 1520 to 1566...
Suleyman's beloved wife was Roxelana. She was a Russian slave who was likely captured in the Caucasus, because of her beauty when she was only ten years old. Then taken to the slave market in Istanbul, where she was purchased for the sultan's harem. At the time of Roxelana’s arrival at the harem, Sultan Suleyman had just became the sovereign. He was a dashing young man in his late 20's, and he was about to bring the Ottoman Empire to the peak of its power and prestige. Roxelana joined the lower ranks of the harem, had a special education about royal protocol, music, dance and finearts just like many other concubines, but she quickly elevated her status. She gained the nickname, Khourrem (Hürrem), meaning "Laughing One," for her high sprits and story telling abilities. She soon became one of Suleyman's favourites, and accompanied him on several public occasions. It’s said that she was beautiful, inteligent, literate, cunning, and seducing ... It’s also said that she convinced Suleyman to kill his Grand Vizir Ibrahim who was opposed to their relationship... what else to say? Suleyman married her in a formal ceremony, breaking with 300 years of Ottoman tradition (!) and making her the first former concubine to gain legitimacy as the Sultan's legal wife... Not being satisfied, she also managed to capture and execute Mustafa, Suleyman’s first born son from his earlier concubine Gulfem. Those days were tough, even in the palace...

THE STORY

Well our little story begins some years before that marriage happens...
One spring day, the Mother Queen before Roxelana, Hafsa Sultan, the one who gave birth to Suleiman the Magnificent and also the one who gave Roxelana the nickname, brought a new girl to the harem. The girl was young, very pale and very quite yet beautiful with stupendous dark hair going down till her knees. Roxelana, even having 4 children -1 died at early age- by Suleyman I. and being overconfident of his love for her, yet not being the mother queen, decided to keep an eye on this beautiful newcomer. The new girl didn’t speak much, with a barely audible voice only when it was unavoidable. Hence Hasfa Sultan decided to call her Hunde, meaning silence. She seemed to like music lessons and spending long hours in the garden. But even being that quite and distant all the eyes in harem observed her when she moved in the room for she moved very slowly, without making any noise and it seemed like she flowed. Terrified once again by the enthrallment of the people Roxelana decided to get closer to Hunde to see if she had some serious intentions behind that angelic look. So she walked by her, told her fancy stories, even maked her smile once or twice but she found out nothing. One day she saw Hunde in the garden, talking to some stone on the ground. From that moment she believed that the poor child was only a loony and stopped worrying about her.

Days passed, years passed, seasons changed... During one winter, while her beloved Sultan was far away for another conquest, Roxelana got very ill. For the first time in her life she felt extremely weak. Some said that it was because of being apart for so long from the beloved one, but she’s quite persuaded that those tattles had poisoned her... The next day Hunde came by Rolexana who recently didn’t laugh much and looked like an flaming cabbage, took her hand in her hands, there was something sharp inside. Suddenly a cooling sensation run up through her veins. She heard Hunde’s voice, looked to her face but didn’t see her lips move yet she was still speaking to her, at least in her mind, she fainted.

When Roxelana woke up, she was feeling much better, she found herself lying on her bed with dozen of crystals around her. The second she straighted herself up, Hunde get in the room smiling.
“what happened yesterday?” she asked
“It’s been two weeks..” a soft voice resonated in her head
“What happened?”
“You were really poisoned, you were dying, so i took care of you”
For the first time they really spoke to each other but their speach was silent. She was living with her family in the Caucasus by the Black Sea. That was how her mother spoke to her most of the time. She “called” her Gultamze (heart’s sun) and loved her dearly. There also were ill persons in the house waiting to be healed almost everytime. She wasn’t sure but she also had some images of a “gem garden” somewhere in the woods? Maybe not... nothing was too clear tough she’s been captured at early age. Eventually one day a ‘stone’ talk to her in the garden of harem and taught her the art of communicating with them and healing ill ones with her powers.
Roxelana not knowing what to say exactly to that stange incident, promised her that what she’s done will never be forgotten when she will be the mother queen herself. Hunde didn’t seem to care, she just smiled and went away.

Few days after Roxelana was perfectly recovered and harem was again resonating with her laughter. Joyfully she gave Hunde a new name: Billurkız (She-Crystal). Billurkız secretly kept helping people with her powers and she was in the care of Roxelana.
But soon rumors got annoyingly multiplied, Billurkız was accused for witchcraft, but Roxelana always stood there for her. And soon everybody shut their mouth for Roxelana managed to became mother queen by convincing Suleyman to officially marry her. First she moved to Topkapı Palace, separating her harem with the Old Palace’s harem. And of course she took Billurkız with her. She gave her a private garden where she could grow crystals among flowers. Although Billurkız never had any appetite for jewels, she wore them during rituals. Nevertheless she was glad to make “new friends” and powerful healing tools. Roxelana on the other hand, had developed a passion for those beautiful precious stones and her craving for them grew stonger with time.

Time passed as they were living happily in the new palace. Half a year later, Roxelana felt that something was wrong with Billurkız for she refused to come out from her room for some weeks. Altough Roxelana is quite arrogant, she couldn’t resist and she decided to go see her. She found Billurkız sitting on the ground, in a meditative state, with a magnificent headpiece made of gold and a dozen different precious stones on her head. Suddenly she was so jealous, she didn’t mind disturbing her with a harsh voice.
“So is that what you’ve been up to?”
Billurkız said nothing. She didn’t even open her eyes but tears were running down, turning into tiny crystals when they hit the ground. Even before she could be amazed by what she saw, some images came like a painful flash in Roxelana’s mind: She was about to give birth to a baby but there was something wrong with him. She felt aches in her tummy.
“What are you doing to me” she cried, being unable to move.
“ You gonna give birth to a disabled child and he is gonna be your last. Two months old he’s right now” Said softly the inner voice.
“ But you can heal him, i know you can!” said Roxelana expectant.
“Not this time. Now i see much clearer, much deeper... you have lied and you have killed to get what you got, and i’m not alowed to heal this child. It doesn’t matter how hard i try, I just can’t. I’m sorry...”

Roxelana tried to stop her tears and rush out. She didn’t sleep that night neither she slept well the coming nights. She couldn’t decide what to do to Billurkız. Should she ask for her head off her neck or banish her to a far land? Or just leave her where she is now for some health and wealth purposes? Well those were just useless thoughts for there was no one the room when the guards entered there the next morning. She had left everthing she made, every stone she grew, as well the magnificent headpiece made of gold and a dozen different precious stones along the others. Nobody figured out how she went out of the palace without being seen.
The precious stones no longer grew in the garden...
After seven month, Roxelana had a disabled baby boy, and took care of him untill she died at the age of 48, before seeing her elder son becoming the next Sultan...
Billurkız was never found. It’s believed that she returned to find her mother’s “gem garden” somewhere back in Georgia...
***

PICTURE
So the scene shows Gultamze (aka Billurkız) in her ceremonial dress, performing a preparation ritual with her crystals, before starting an important healing process.

The cloth you see here is a picture from Topkapı; Palace Museum in Istanbul. This was a sun patterned Seraser Caftan belonged to Sultan Selim II (Roxelana’s elder son ), back in16th century. Seraser is a fabric with silk warp woven entirely with a weft made of silver or an alloy of silver and gold. It’s very heavy and costly. In the Ottoman court it was the most preferred for outer caftans and was also used in certain ceremonies...
I drew and painted the rest digitally and used photos for all the gems and crystals
For the headpiece, i did the design myself, but it’s not very far from the Ottoman ornaments of that time. Normally that kind of headpieces were put on quilted turban and used as “imperial aigrette”
Do you wanna know which stones i’ve used fot it? Really, r you sure? Ok. In no apparent odrer, meaning in disorder: Adventurines, Aquamarines, Diamonds, Emeralds, Citrines, Rubys, Green Tsavorites, Fire Agate, Sapphires, Opals, Peridots, Topaz, Pearls..... The two big ones on the foreground are Elestials... Using photos may not sound fair but i’ve arranged and put them one by one, and it took years (!)

EPILOGUE
Ok. That was long...
I want you to know that i’m not intending to bring an accusation on any of the real characters, especially not to Roxelana. My knowledge on history is poor and doesn’t go beyond some school books –where the information isn’t always true-. I wrote this by puttting some fiction in the history book, then poured in a saucepan and stirred for 5min. and cooked for many hours at medium heat
All i wanted to do was put together a ‘Gem-healer’ character in the Ottoman history and explain briefly the context. But once started writing, i couldn't stop, it kinda went where it wanted to go and turned out to be a story-like thing. Hence you don’t get a lot of detail about the character. Finally, i'm sorry if i got you confused with all-the-time-changing-names , but i love finding names from different cultures and finding out their meanings. Sorry if it was too boring... and sorry for the english mistakes too