Topkapi Palace is a landmark of no small consequence, standing near the Hagia Sophia and serving at once as a royal residence and a seat of administration. Grand in its building, the palace bespeaks the long lineage of the ruling house and spreads over ample grounds of courtyards and gardens. The quarter about it is a lively one, the more so upon public occasions such as a parade; and the Bostanji Imperial Guard keeps its station near at hand to preserve order and safety at such gatherings.
Of late the palace was the scene of a coronation, where Abd-ul Mejid received the Sword of Osman upon its steps. The neighbouring streets were thronged with onlookers as the guards fenced off their several quarters to master the press. The rejoicing included a scattering of coins, which bred some ill-feeling among those present, certain of whom made their protest by casting the coins back, avowing that they belonged to the Janissaries. The moment of the palace was heightened, too, by the presence of high officers of state, and Osman Hamdi Bey among them, who fell to discoursing upon the temper of the times and the governance of the city thereabouts.
In the days before the coronation a certain agent proposed a ruse — to let fall word of a plot against Mustafa Pasha, Vizier-i Aezam, at Topkapi Palace, and so provoke a response whilst keeping the true mark concealed. This design was set to play out before a meeting with the Kavalan Of Egypt two days hence, which marked the palace still a focus of political intrigue and manoeuvre within the Empire. The stroke was appointed for Topkapi Palace, a well-guarded place, which did but underline its weight in the present ordering of affairs.
More lately still, Topkapi Palace has been reckoned a chief seat of the Ottoman Empire, the residence of the Padishah and a centre of power and of diplomacy. Its plan is laid with an eye to the housing of the ruling class and their guests. It has been bound up with negotiations between Ottoman and Egyptian in a season darkened by plots of assassination and by political manoeuvre. At one weighty conference Padishah Abd-ul Mejid declared the capture of Hamit the Quartz of Damascus, a known assassin, at which the assembled diplomats drew breath in astonishment; and thereupon Kavalan, a figure of note, slew Hamit and laid a spell upon him to defeat a working of memory-wiping set upon him. This deed drew Topkapi Palace under suspicion of conspiracy and strained the talks; and an Unidentified Palace Official was seen to withdraw from the discussions in haste, which argued some inward treachery or plot within the palace.
Besides this, a session of the court at Topkapi Palace ended in the execution of a would-be assassin at the hand of the Egyptian Kavalan. The palace stands a venue for political dealings of the highest stakes and for the decisions that govern the region. The Egyptian Kavalan worked the spell Speak with Dead upon the corpse of the executed man, and so drew out memories that had been wiped away in life. This passed within the palace, and pointed anew to its office as a place of power and of intrigue.