H
YACINTH had not gone out. Indeed, just as he had feared, he would never again leave the palace, which had been his home for so many years.
There was no one alive, except the valide herself, who could have remembered the stringy little African boy who had arrived at the Topkapi Palace in the cold winter of 1789. When he had first seen snow, he had shrieked with terror: for a whole day he sat in the antechamber of the eunuchs’ apartments, with his hands over his funny little ears, and shrieked every time someone opened the door. The old eunuchs had found this quite hilarious; and some of the more mischievous girls had come to tease him, pretending the sky really was falling on their heads, until the Kislar aga of the day had shooed them all away, and sentenced Hyacinth to stand in the snow in bare feet until he understood what it was.
Which was also how he got his name, Hyacinth, growing most incongruously out of the snow-covered ground.
Hyacinth no longer minded the snow, of course. As it settled on his hair, and on his back, and drifted between his curled fingers, he was quite dead to the ancient terror it had once inspired.
He lay in the pool, on the tiles, exactly where he had fallen, as snow covered the lake of blood that seeped from his smashed forehead, and turned to dark ice on the frozen ground.
T
HE man with the knife saw and heard the dog before the dog saw him.
It ran howling out of the pine trees, a big mastiff with a thick, matted yellow coat. A proper shepherd’s dog. When it stumbled and lurched sideways, snapping at its own tail, the man with the knife felt a tremor of fear.
He stood very still, thinking the mastiff might not see him if he did not move. Its eyes were sticky, foam lashing at its jaws, and it whirled from side to side, stumbling nearer to him across the frozen ground. But there was no purpose in its erratic course. There was a chance that the dog would simply pass him by.
When the dog was only a few yards away, the man reluctantly lifted his stick.
At no moment did the frenzied animal recognize the man, or make up its mind to attack: it seemed lost in its own suffering. But as he raised his stick, the dog flung itself at him, suddenly, with its lips peeled back and jaws wide.
The man was caught off guard, but he was strong and his aim was good. The stick connected with the dog’s muzzle in mid-spring, as the man stepped back. The dog landed heavily, shook its huge head, and bared its teeth with a strangled sound.
He hit it again, a more considered blow on the side of its head.
The mastiff staggered, and seemed about to fall, but as the man raised the stick again it sprang disjointedly. The vicious jaws snapped shut on the stick, and with a heave of its head it almost pulled it out of his hands.
The man pressed the stick to the ground, lowering the dog’s head, watching the saliva run toward his hands. It took great strength to hold the stick down. He wanted his knife.
The dog shook the stick a few times, then yelped and dropped back, jaws agape.
That was all the time the man needed. He plucked his knife from his belt and raised the stick, and when the dog came on again, grinding its fangs from side to side, he slammed the stick against its jaws with one hand and with the other stuck the knife straight and hard into the dog’s neck, behind the ear.
He felt its hot breath against his chest; he felt the heat of its blood running over his hand. He twisted the knife and dragged down savagely, once, twice, grunting with exertion as he pulled the blade through the matted fur.
The dog sagged, overbalancing them both. The man fell back, unable to keep the weight of the dog from sinking against his chest. Blood from its gashed neck spurted out over his legs and he scrambled backward, the slippery hilt of the knife sliding from his fingers.
On the ground the mastiff jerked spasmodically, working its jaws while its hind legs scrabbled for purchase. But the man knew it was over.
He held the back of his wrist to his mouth and watched the dog die.
It died with a sort of ragged gasp. One moment it had muscles, and a form; the next, it was splayed on the ground, haunches high, the head lolling and blood staining the grass.
The man waited for a few minutes, until his heartbeat settled. He bent down and pulled the knife clear. He wiped it on the grass: he did not wish to touch the dog.
Y
ASHIM woke early, groping for the quilt that had slipped from his legs. He squinted at the unaccustomed brightness and then sat up, yawning, and rubbed the condensation from the window pane. Snow lay thick on the rooftops of Balat.
He drew up his knees and leaned back against the cushions, watching his dragon’s breath.
After a few moments he began to grope for his clothes, drawing them under the quilt to warm up, before he sprang with a shiver from the divan and began to dress, hurriedly wriggling his arms into the sleeves of the cambric shirt he wore over his woolen vest. There was ice in the washbasin: Yashim pulled a face, plunged his hand through the ice, and splashed freezing water over his eyes, his mouth and ears. He dried himself quickly on a towel, feeling newly awake. Over his shirt he put on a woolen waistcoat and a quilted jacket; then he tucked his feet into a pair of slippers.
Outside the door he bent down and carefully fastened a pair of galoshes over his feet. The alley was covered in snow, but once he reached Kara Davut the way was better; shopkeepers had shoveled the snow into the middle of the road. He entered his favourite café, rubbing his hands, and the proprietor nodded and put a small coffee pan on the coals.
Yashim ate his breakfast by the steamed-up window, coffee and a
corek
as usual, which is how the palace
chaush
found him a few minutes later. Several heads turned in the café as he presented Yashim with a note, bound in vermilion ribbon; then they looked hastily away. Among the Turks, curiosity was not reckoned a virtue.
Yashim read the note, frowned, and put it into his breast pocket.
“Let’s go,” he said.
T
HE search for Hyacinth had not begun in earnest until after midnight, when the other eunuchs protested at his absence from prayers. Confusion reigned over where the old eunuch was likely to have gone; so it was not until the small hours that a proper search had been instituted by the corporal of the halberdiers.
Off-duty men had been roused from their sleep to join the search, and to confirm that Hyacinth had not left the harem earlier in the day. They looked first in the cavernous kitchens of the palace, built, like the Court of the Favorites and the pool, by the great Sinan, and then in the harem mosque. The harem was a warren of corridors and courts and little rooms, and the search party proceeded only slowly, and with many delays, as women were roused and questioned through half-open doors, and empty rooms were opened and inspected.
The harem had been home to many hundreds of women, eunuchs, and children, and over the centuries it had grown higgledy-piggledy over several levels, as rooms were extended or partitioned, demolished and rebuilt. The search party had stuck together, holding flaming torches, as they climbed and descended and followed corridors through suites of chambers and courts and little gardens. At first they had called to Hyacinth by name, but after an hour or two they had grown more quiet, alarmed by the echo of their own voices and by an increasing dread of summoning the departed. For everyone by then was already sure he was dead.
They had searched the Court of the Favorites at least twice in the night; but the light cast by their torches did not reach the pool beneath the balustrade, so it was not until dawn that someone first noticed a dark shape on the tiles below. The keys to the bathing pool were sought and produced, and at last, after the hour of the morning prayer, three halberdiers pried the body of the old eunuch off the pool floor with a peculiar sucking sound that drove several onlookers from the balustrade above.
The corporal told Yashim it was clear from the amount of snow that covered him, and from the state of rigor, that the old man had been dead for quite some time.
They had lowered him onto a sheet and brought him to the deserted hospital quarters upstairs.
Yashim pulled back a sheet to examine the body. There was little else to be learned. The old eunuch had probably died instantly when he hit the tiles. His limbs, Yashim noticed, were beginning to thaw, but he lay still with his arms outstretched over his head, as if warding off some final blow; or in a parody of waking.
Yashim spent a little more time examining the floor of the pool before he ordered the blood to be washed away. Upstairs, he stood by the balustrade, piecing together in his mind the circumstances of Hyacinth’s fatal fall. Finally, he took a stiff broom from one of the halberdiers and swept at the ice and slush that covered the courtyard, peering down now and then to see if anything turned up. He found a small coin and a tiny bead of green glass; but otherwise nothing.
“And the yard was covered in snow and ice yesterday?”
“It fell heavily yesterday morning, efendi,” the corporal explained.
“And was not swept? There’s salt here, at least.”
“We salted the open courts the night before, efendi. When it looked like snow.”
“But nobody swept here yesterday?”
The corporal hesitated. “No, efendi. The order was not given.”
“And tell me, corporal, who gives the orders to sweep the courts?”
“That would be the late
lala
Hyacinth, efendi. Indeed, I told the men yesterday to have the brooms ready, in expectation of his order. I suppose—” He hesitated again. “Forgive me, efendi, but it seems to me that he may have been inspecting the condition of the ground when he slipped.”
“Thank you, corporal. I’d like to speak with the eunuchs now.”
There were six of them, all old men like Hyacinth, sitting glumly around a brazier in the first room of the eunuchs’ quarters, up by the gate to the Second Court of the palace.
“Yesterday, gentlemen, Hyacinth ate with you at the midday meal?”
They tried to remember, their eyes full of concern, nodding dumbly.
“It was the last time we saw him, Yashim,” one of them volunteered in his quavery, fluting voice.
Yashim coughed gently. “And what did he talk about? Can you remember?”
The old men blinked at one another, and at the ground.
“About the snow? Did you talk about the weather?” Perhaps the corporal was right, and Hyacinth had been inspecting the condition of the courts. He could have gone to the balustrade, and slipped.
“The cold weather,” one of the men said, nodding. “He never liked it, Yashim efendi.”
“No. But did he say the ground needed to be swept?” Normally Yashim would have avoided such a direct question; but the old men’s memories needed jogging. “Did he mean to look?”
“I don’t know, Yashim efendi,” one of the eunuchs replied, with a faint shrug. “But I don’t think that’s why he expected you to visit.”
“Me to visit? Why?”
The old man shook his head. “He didn’t say, Yashim efendi. But perhaps it was about the girl?”
“Melda? What was the matter?”
The elderly man cracked his long knuckles and looked unhappy. “She hasn’t been doing very well,” he said.
“She’s been sick,” another man added. “And Hyacinth
lala
was concerned. That’s right. He wanted to talk to you.”
“And he said I was coming? To see him here?”
The old men exchanged glances. “I thought that’s what he said,” the first ventured.
“Do you remember?” He appealed to the others, who considered.
“That’s right,” one of them said finally. “He said you were coming later on, and he’d be glad to see you.”
Yashim nodded and bit his lip. “Has the valide been informed?”
The eunuchs glanced at one another.
They’re rudderless
, Yashim thought. All their lives they have deferred to others, to a Kislar aga, to Hyacinth, to the valide. But the valide had grown old, and the Kislar aga was no longer there.
And Hyacinth was suddenly gone.
“I take it none of you have spoken to her yet.” It was a statement, not a question. The eunuchs looked sorrowful, and faintly relieved. “I’ll tell her myself,” Yashim added.
The old men thought that would be best. Yashim left them all nodding solemnly and stroking their beardless faces, and went to find the valide.
H
E found, instead, the valide’s slave.
She put a finger to her lips and let him through the door.
“She’s sleeping, Yashim efendi,” she whispered.
Yashim nodded. He had momentarily forgotten the young woman’s name.
“Perhaps I should wait,” he said.
The girl’s head bobbed. Her eyes were wide. “It’s Hyacinth, isn’t it? He’s dead.”
“Yes, I’m afraid so, Tülin,” he added, remembering her name. For a moment he had felt like one of the old men. “He must have fallen on the ice. He died instantly.”
“Hamdullah,” the girl mumbled: by the grace of God.
“Hamdullah,” Yashim repeated. “He was an old man.”
She said gently: “I can tell the valide about it, if you’d prefer.”
“I don’t think so, Tülin. The valide has known Hyacinth for a very long time.”
It came out as a rebuke, more emphatically than he’d meant. He glanced across and saw a slight flicker in the girl’s eyes as she registered what he’d left unsaid. That she was less significant than Hyacinth. That she was less to the valide than Yashim himself.
He flashed her a brief, friendly smile. A girl of her age could scarcely comprehend what Hyacinth embodied: the shared experience, the years of enclosure and drama and ennui.
He turned from Tülin and stood looking into the fire that smoldered in the vestibule.
“Hyacinth was important to the valide in a way that might be hard to understand,” he began. He would have added that the old eunuch was like a lovely vase given to her years ago to keep, which was now lost and broken; but at that moment a bell tinkled faintly in the room beyond.
“Tülin! Tülin!”
She brushed past him swiftly, with a glance he found hard to interpret, and before he could say another word she had gone in to the valide.
Yashim sighed, wondering whether he should stay. If he waited, it was at Tülin’s pleasure: he could hardly blunder into the valide’s chamber unannounced. He cocked his head. He could hear the valide muttering something next door, and the lower, soothing tones of Tülin’s voice; but farther off he could hear, too, the sound of the muezzin calling the Friday prayer.
He started, surprised it had grown so late.
At the door he brushed past a damp cloak hanging on a peg; the coldness made him shudder. He noticed a pair of galoshes on the floor, surrounded by a little muddied pool of meltwater, and the sight suddenly brought tears to his eyes. It was, he thought, just the sort of little thing Hyacinth would have fussed over, in his punctilious way.
Yashim considered it the proper time to offer up his prayers.