Exile

After he'd put the hot charcoal in the samovar, the sultan placed the teapot atop and waited for the Ceylon leaves to brew. He admired the gold inlays of the device – real gold he was told, dredged from the deposits of the Lena river in Bodaybo.

He stepped out onto the balcony and thought how curious it is. That the sandovar can be forged of the precious minerals of the Russian Empire, to scent Ottoman tea rooms with sweet steam, to be operated by hands not his, to be here now, plumes joining with the unfamiliar spray of the Liguerian Sea.

He had expected to be bitter. His brother and servant were at the casino turning the crumbs of his empire into chips. Creditors would attend his funeral. He would not be buried in Constantinople. But he savoured these thoughts like spices, and thanked The Most Compassionate for life's bazaar.

The black tea was ready. The samovar bubbled. It had found its way here, with him, to the twilight of a life of conquest, to face the same consequences, exiled in a foreign land, worthless to all but each other.