Of the many things I thought the sultan’s daughter would look like, bored was not one of them. She was squatting on the ground, drawing circles in the sand with her kalis, when I stepped out of my home to greet her, bearing a flask of tuba as was my custom for first-timers. I knew it was the sultan’s daughter even if she gave a fake name and had sliced off most of her hair – she could do nothing about her dark eyes, or the way her mouth slouched across her face, a grimace that marred her otherwise famous beauty.

Winter will always remind you of three things: the smoke rising from the fire that burned your home; the cold floor you slept on as a pageboy in the teahouse; and the peculiar shade of your brother’s skin, the way his bruises grayed like melted snow.