“
I
T’S late, Tülin. I feel tired, I want to sleep.”
Tülin hovered. “Yes, valide.”
The valide turned her head. “You can go now. Leave a lamp.”
She gestured to the lights.
“The Kislar aga did not come?”
“No, valide. I sent the message.”
“Well, well. No doubt he is busy.”
“No doubt, valide. Perhaps you should tell me what you wished to talk about, and then—”
“And then?” The valide’s glance was quizzical.
Tülin shrugged. “He has many calls on his time.”
“Ah, yes.” The valide turned over and rested her face on her pillow. “I suppose you are right.” She closed her eyes and nestled down. “I wanted to tell him I can’t go to Besiktas.”
“Valide?”
“Too old, Tülin. Too much change. It makes me ill.”
Tülin’s fingers twisted the button on her jacket. “Once we’ve made the move, you’ll feel much more comfortable.”
“Nonsense.” The valide munched her lips. “Let’s talk about it in the morning.”
“You promised me, valide. You promised the Kislar aga, too.”
“Promised? I promised nothing, Tülin. I made a plan—and now I have changed my mind. You may still go to the orchestra, every week.”
But Tülin didn’t want to go to the orchestra every week.
For months she had sat at the feet of the woman who had been—still was—the most powerful woman in the Ottoman Empire. Old as she was, and frail, her memories had been instructive.
Tülin certainly had made plans.
She twiddled the button very fast, between her fingers; and her eyes grew narrow.
The valide lay back on her cushions, her eyes closed.
Tülin picked up a pillow, and very slowly she crept toward the divan.
Y
ASHIM closed his eyes, and closed his mind: he was a machine, an automaton, back, forward, back. His lungs were ready to burst. Back again!
His mind was fixed on the old jetty beneath the seraglio gardens. Once, in former years, it would have provided him with an instant sanctuary: two Janissaries at the gate, a couple of hefty bostancis to guard the imperial caïque. These days the jetty was likely to be deserted; the gate sealed. It was many years since the valide had expressed a wish to go scudding across the Bosphorus.
And the water gate was now his only hope.
His pursuers were almost on him. Two caïques running almost side by side, twenty yards behind him. He could see the muscles bulging in the rowers’ necks. He glanced back, over his shoulder.
It would never work. He still had two, three hundred yards to go.
He grunted, and dragged the sculls through the water. They had to board him first, of course. Yashim set his mind to the coming fight when something quite unexpected occurred.
The caïque nearest to him gave a sudden lurch, and the rower was almost hurled overboard; at almost the same moment the second caïque swung around with such force that spray flew into the air. It was as if some unseen hand had reached out from the depths and taken both caïques in its iron grip.
As they bobbed and dipped, Yashim could hear shouts of anger, or surprise. One of the caïquejees stood up and appeared to be driving his oar into the water.
Yashim pulled hard, not letting up, almost superstitiously eager to get away from the commotion that had overtaken his pursuers.
He cleared another hundred yards. Over the icy waters he could hear the shouts of the caïquejees. One of them, indeed, seemed to have regained his stroke: but the distance was on Yashim’s side.
He turned his head and saw a lamp at the landing stage, with a knot of men around it.
His heart sank.
They’d beaten him to it.
And then, with a second glance, he saw something else: the bobbing prow of an imperial caïque, with its boxlike pavilion, tethered to the stage like a thoroughbred in its stable.
He pulled up. A man bent down to gather in the painter, and Yashim half crawled from the pitching craft onto the stage.
“On the sultan’s service,” he gasped. “Yashim, for the valide.”
N
OT far away two very cold, very unhappy young men crawled out of the icy water and sank down in the mud.
Fizerly’s knuckles were covered in blood. He thought he’d lost a tooth.
“Blasted caïquejees!” Compston spat. “Think they’d want to save a life—almost killed us!”
Dark figures approached, gingerly, over the slippery ground.
“Towels, gentlemen. And my congratulations!” Esterhazy snapped his fingers. “I have brought rubbing spirits. My man will see that you get warm as quickly as possible.”
“Rubbing be damned,” Compston gasped, and shot out a trembling arm. “Good man!”
The bottle rattled against his bloody mouth.
Y
ASHIM reached the garden door of the harem and crashed on it with his fist.
A startled eunuch stood in the open doorway.
“Yashim!” he squeaked. “But how—?”
Yashim brushed past him and began to run down the Golden Road. He darted out into the court of the valide, and swerved to his right.
He heard a noise like a champagne cork being popped.
He dived at the valide’s door and flung it back.
In three steps he crossed the vestibule and entered the valide’s apartment.
Tülin was standing by the divan with a pillow clenched against her chest.
On the divan the valide was half sitting up, half lying, on her elbow.
She held a little gun in her hand, and the gun was pointed at Tülin.
B
OTH of them glanced at Yashim as he came in.
But when Tülin turned her head, she kept on turning. Her eyes swept glassily over the valide, over the little gun, over Yashim standing in the doorway, and then, without another sound, she subsided onto the floor.
Yashim sprang forward and the valide reached out, dangling the gun from a slender finger.
“Take it, Yashim. I won’t be needing it again tonight.”
Yashim took the gun mechanically. “She was going to kill you,” he said.
“
Incroyable.
And with that pillow. You have to be firm, Yashim, as I have always said.”
Yashim glanced down at the dead girl.
The bullet had got her just above her eyes.
“I have spent a great deal of time with my
vieux papa
, these last few days, Yashim,” the valide said wearily. “Or is it weeks? Long ago, on Martinique, he taught me how to shoot. I suppose it’s one of those things you don’t forget.”
Yashim’s legs felt weak. He sat down on the divan. “Where did you get the gun?”
“I’ve had it for years, Yashim. The sultan gave it to me.
My
sultan, of course—Abdülhamid. I think it amused him to watch me shoot. He was rather a dear man, in many ways.” A filmy look came into her eyes; then she tossed her head, and said: “You can put it away now. The case is under the divan.”
The pistol case was made of red leather and bore the
tughra
of Sultan Abdülhamid on the lid. Inside was a yellow silk lining, and the pistol’s twin, nestling in its groove. It bore an English label:
J. Purdey, London
.
Yashim slotted the pistol back into its case and closed the lid.
“You might ask someone to take her away,” the valide said. “I’m feeling rather tired, and these days I prefer to sleep alone.”
Yashim stood up. “Of course, valide.”
“We’ll talk in the morning, Yashim.” She yawned. “I expect I’ll have … rather exciting dreams.”
He bowed.
And went to find the colonel of the halberdiers.
P
ALEWSKI stood by the fire with his elbow on the mantelpiece.
“And so,” he concluded, “they sped across the frozen lake, the prince and the princess, to the gates of the ice castle. And when the ice maidens flung back the gates to welcome them, they went in, and sat down to the most beautiful banquet there ever was.”
“What did they eat?”
“Yes, what did they eat? They ate, um, tiny kebabs.”
“Why were they tiny?”
“They were tiny because that way they could eat more of them,” Palewski said.
The little girl nodded, as if that made sense.
“Ah, here’s Marta!” Palewski cried. “And that, Roxelana, is the end of the story.”
Roxelana nodded again, and looked serious. “I’d like tiny kebabs,” she said.
Palewski cast a hopeful look toward Marta.
“If the young lady will come with me to the kitchen …” she said with a smile.
Roxelana slipped off the armchair. She bowed gravely to Palewski and slipped her hand into Marta’s.
At the door she gave a little shiver, and turned. “I wouldn’t like to live in an ice castle forever,” she pointed out.
Palewski nodded. “It’s unlikely, Roxelana, that you ever will,” he said, thinking of Egypt.
When the door had closed he turned to Kadri, who was sitting in a window seat, and said: “Any sign?”
Kadri shook his head. “I enjoyed the story, too.”
Palewski ran his hand through his hair. “Good, good,” he said absently, and moved toward the sideboard.
“Here he comes,” Kadri said.
“Yashim?”
“I don’t think so. No. It must be Fevzi Ahmet Pasha.”
Palewski sighed. He picked up a pair of candles from the sideboard.
He heard the sound of someone yanking on the bell; the dry slither of the bell chain in the metal eye, then muttering.
He went downstairs and opened the door.
Fevzi Pasha was standing on the steps, frowning down at the bellpull, which had come away in his hand.
“Please, do step in.”
Fevzi Ahmet dropped the bellpull to the ground. “Where’s my daughter? Where’s Yashim?”
“If you’d be so kind as to follow me,” Palewski said, holding up the candles. “Just mind the first step,” he added, as he reached the stairs.
In the drawing room he introduced his visitor to Kadri. Fevzi Ahmet looked suspiciously around the room.
“Tea, my dear fellow?”
Fevzi Ahmet scowled and shook his head.
“Perhaps—if you’ll allow—a little brandy?”
The hunted man turned and stared at Palewski.
“Yes.”
“Capital! Capital! Do you know, efendi, I think I’ll join you.”
T
HE man with the knife stood in the shadows, watching the lighted window.
He did not think the doors would be locked. He was not expected.
He shivered, though the sweat sparkled on his forehead. He felt the ice on his face, and the fire in his chest.
So many doors, so many windows! Istanbul was bigger than any town he had ever seen. At first he had been bewildered; even afraid. But he could track his prey through a maze of alleys and squares more easily than hunting in the hills.
And now, standing there fingering the blade, the man with the knife swallowed and smiled a small, sad smile of satisfaction.
A pasha, too, was only a man. He would beg for mercy. He would bleed.
And then he would die.
Y
ASHIM came slowly up the dark stairway.
At the top he paused.
The light was drifting from beneath the door, and he could hear voices beyond.
“They say that the Greeks did have a bridge,” Palewski said. “Under Justinian.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. There was an Italian, later on.”
“Leonardo da Vinci. It was never built.”
Fevzi Pasha spat. “I saw the plans. Too complex. It would never have worked.”
Yashim pushed the door. “Good evening,” he said, with a bow. “I’m afraid I was detained at the palace.” He advanced into the room. “Where’s Roxelana?”
Palewski came past him, to the door. “Marta!”
R
OXELANA came in reluctantly, her eyes on the carpet. As she advanced she glanced once over her shoulder, and at the door Marta nodded with an encouraging smile.
Roxelana bowed, lowering her hand to the floor.
“Efendim,” she whispered. She did not look up.
Fevzi Pasha took a step toward her. “You—you know who I am?” He grinned awkwardly and thrust his head forward. “Your baba!”
The little girl shrank back. “I’m Roxelana,” she whispered. “I’m big now. I’m five.”
Fevzi Ahmet dropped to one knee and opened his arms.
“My—little—girl,” he said.
Yashim and Palewski both turned their heads and looked at each other; but out of the corner of his eye Yashim saw the little girl take a hesitant step forward, twisting her fingers.
“Baba?” Her whisper was scarcely audible.
Fevzi lunged and snatched her up. Then he took her off, toward the window, whispering something in her ear.
“It’s a cold night,” Palewski said. “Have a glass.”
Yashim declined. “Too many surprises in one day,” he said, and dropped into the armchair. “I’ve come from the valide.”
There was a silence. Marta spoke from the doorway.
“The little girl was just eating her dinner,” she said.
Fevzi Ahmet let her down. “Finish your dinner.”
When she had gone, Fevzi turned to the window. “Long ago,” he said, addressing his own reflection in the glass, “I lost someone very precious to me. Never again.” He glanced around. “My daughter comes to Egypt. With me.”
Yashim considered him. His enemy. His mentor.
“My men are waiting.”
They went downstairs, Yashim holding the candles. In the hall Marta came through with Roxelana, who climbed sleepily into Fevzi Ahmet’s arms, and wound her own around his neck.
Fevzi Ahmet stroked her hair. Over the top of her head he said, “We had a deal, Yashim. Or have you forgotten?”
Yashim shook his head.
“Then you are afraid?”
“Yes. I am afraid.”
Fevzi Ahmet bent and peered into Yashim’s face. “Why do you think I chose you, all those years ago? Why?”
“Because I spoke Greek and—other languages,” Yashim answered. He looked into Fevzi Ahmet’s face, watched the shadows flicker across his scars. “Because I can be invisible.”
Fevzi Ahmet gave a dry laugh. “It takes some courage, Yashim efendi. I think you have some. That’s why I chose you.”
Yashim said nothing, but for a moment the candles dipped in his hand.
Fevzi’s voice was a whisper. “Shamyl.”
Yashim stood woodenly at the door.
“Shamyl? That’s not possible.”
“The Lion of the Caucasus,” Fevzi said. “The great hero.”
Yashim blinked. Almost single-handedly, Shamyl had fought the Russians to a standstill in the mountains of Georgia. He was a figure of myth, pure and beyond reproach.
It made no sense.
“Ask Shamyl.” Fevzi laughed. “A promise is a promise.”
He wrenched at the door and flung it back. The candles guttered in the sudden draft, and Yashim heard his boots on the stone steps. He heard him cross the graveled courtyard. He heard the sound of men assembling on the road outside. He saw a lantern, and its feeble light swinging in the air; and then the light and the pasha were gone.
The candelabra was still in his raised hand.
He lowered his hand, closed the door, and made his way back, slowly, treading carefully up the dark stairs.