The Lake of Sorrows (24 page)

Beads of sweat were running down Alhi’s brow now, as goatherd and Pasha clashed within him. “We can arrest and execute a pauper or his wife on a whim, Pashou. I can take a pauper’s daughter for my harem on the most fleeting of passions. But the wife of a magnate merchant like Dimitros Vassiliou is a different matter. And the Patriarch’s niece a
very
different matter.”

“Is the great Pasha afraid?”

“Watch your tongue, woman! No enemy of mine has so far lived to ripe old age, but even I cannot deal with all my enemies at the same time. You are a promising daughter-in-law, Pashou. I pray to all my gods that my grandchildren will inherit both what is to be found of me in Muhtar -
and
what is so obviously to be found in you. Still, my mother taught me that those who can be patient will get to savor the smell of their enemies’ corpses.”

Pashou’s eyes shone at the thought. “I would savor the smell of
hers.
But
my
mother taught me not to settle for promises.”

Alhi drew in a sharp breath, half-raised his hand - then caught himself and laughed a thunderous laugh. All the more thunderous to prove he was above being driven to rage by a woman. “A wise woman, your mother. But my promises are those of the Pasha of Hyperus. All in good time, my child. All in good time.”

“A
ll dressed up and ready to leave? And before yesterday, I could not make you leave the house if I had threatened to bring it down about your ears.”

Froshenie, standing at the door of the Vassiliou house, did not answer her Vaya. In stubborn silence, she put on a heavy cloak, and drew up the hood.

Chryssie stomped her foot on the floor. “Where do you think you are going, my sweet?”

“Full of words all of a sudden? When all day today you have not spoken one word to me.”

“I … have had my reasons. And I repeat — where do you think you are going?”

“It matters little to you, Chryssie, as I am going alone.”

“Have you lost your mind completely?” Chryssie forgot herself and clutched at her lady’s forearm. “Bringing this Antichrist home? In broad daylight, too, for everyone to see?”

“So that is why you have had a face like a stone wall all day. Yes, I have lost my mind. And my heart. And I know you hate it. Hate
him
. So I go alone.”

“How on earth will you be able to walk outside this door again without shame, once the gossip starts?”

“The gossip is spreading like weeds already, I am sure. What do small hearts and minds hate more than another’s happiness?”

“Happiness! You do not think of Dimitros. You do not think of your children. But what about yourself? You are committing suicide, Froshenie. What sort of spell has he cast on my girl?”

“If you cannot see it, you must be blind, Chryssie. And yet, I hope you never feel it yourself.” Tears welled up in Froshenie’s eyes. “I feel so helpless.”

“Then open your eyes that have been blinded by this rascal’s charms and see where you are going. Straight to the bottom of the lake my dear, to keep poor Shouhrae and the eels company.”

Through the tears, Froshenie’s eyes darkened with fury and she wrenched away from her Vaya’s grasp. “Where I go and what I do is my own business, Vaya. I am not a child any more that needs your advice. If I want to die, I will.”

“The devil, or the Muslim Allah has stolen your soul! Fear and remorse should be burning you up right now, not this — “

“If the flames of hell itself were burning me up, I would still go. You cannot understand. I will rather die burning than yearning.”

“Where are you going?” Chryssie was pleading now, sobbing. She tugged once more at her mistress’ arm, now feebly, like a child.

Froshenie pried herself loose. “I am going to visit and inspect my grave. The lake, as you so well described it.”

The Vaya collapsed on her knees and wept.

F
roshenie wandered through the reeds ringing the lake like a sleepwalker, barely noticing how they tugged at her cloak and slapped her face. She reached the shore of the lake and stood there for she did not know how long, staring at the water. The pale moon struggled to throw a little light through the clouds above her, but it only made the water look like lead.

She raised her gaze to the quay - and the boat that hung on its moorings, heaving sluggishly up and down on the surface of the lake. She looked around her for a flower, but no flowers seemed to want to grow on the shores of this lake, so she could only pick up a water lily and toss it further out. “In memory of you, Shouhrae.” Froshenie spoke so gently that she was not quite sure if she spoke or simply thought the words. “We did not know one another in this world, but my nightmares tell me our fates are bonded. We shall meet. Soon.”

She sank down to her knees on the soggy ground at the lake’s edge. “People are telling all kinds of stories about you now that you are gone, even if noone cared to know when you were still among us. That you had no illusions. Strange for a harem girl, who have to have them, to bear the life in the harem.”

Slipping a hand into the ice-cold water, Froshenie smiled at noone. “You knew, did you not, that you were not walking on clouds, like other silly and envious girls think of your kind.” She put her wet fingers against her lips, shivering. “You knew precisely the danger you were in. What it would mean if you chose to give in to love. And you knew you really did not have a choice in the matter.”

The release of tears would no longer come. “Neither do I. I thought I was in love with a good and kind man, but it was only the gratitude of a little girl. Now I … I sin. I weep for those I know I will hurt. I tremble for myself, for what will happen to me. But my heart … sings for the first time in my life. As did yours, did it not? Even when they cut your life so very short because of it?”

The water lily bobbed and swayed away in the darkness, towards the middle of the lake. Finally, Froshenie’s tears came.

“P
ray that the fever lasts, my lady!”

Chryssie’s outburst made no impression on her lady, lying motionless in bed, drenched in sweat despite being naked beneath the thinnest of silk covers, gazing out the window without seeing anything.

Returning from the lake, Froshenie had been shivering with fever - or that, at least, was what Chryssie preferred to believe. Froshenie had meekly submitted to being put to bed. Chryssie had asked, then interrogated her what was the matter with her and gotten no answer. She had tried to summon doctor Karayannis, but he was nowhere to be found. She had called at Constantine’s Inn after going to market - but Constantine was nowhere to be found, either.

“Never will you be able to walk outside this door again, my poor Froshenie. Oh, why did you have to fall in love with the son of the Beast? Why did you have to allow him into your house? And why did you have to do it in
daylight?
”

Froshenie briefly focused her distant gaze on her Vaya, then once more looked out of the window.

Chryssie could not help wringing her hands, or keep herself from shouting. “The entire town is a witch’s cauldron of gossip now. I could not take my eyes off the street’s cobblestones at the bazaar. The shame! Everybody started whispering the minute I walked by. They giggled and gossiped and … and with good reason, too! By the Virgin Mary, you have doomed this household with your sins. And your husband’s reputation!”

This time, Froshenie did not even look at her Vaya. She merely pulled her covers closer about her and sighed resignedly.

Her Vaya’s voice reached falsetto. “How long do you think it will take before the news reach him? Do not fool yourself — he will find out. And soon.”

Froshenie gently smoothed the covers over her. “I am no longer even trying to fool myself, poor Chryssie. He will find out and he will not care for his reputation, he is a better man than that. But his heart will be hurt, deeply. And I will have done it to him.”

“At last you see
something
clearly. But, dear God, you are too late. Far too late.”

“I knew that when I gave up struggling against what was happening, Vaya. The pain, Dimitros’ and mine, is part of the … of what I share with Muhtar. I could only have stopped it by ceasing to live - and others will see to that soon enough.”

“At least we can thank Heaven that the Beast’s son has run off to fight one of his father’s horrid wars. God willing, some stout fighter of Argyrokastro will send the devil Muhtar to his just reward and save us — “

In a blur, Froshenie flung aside the covers and was out of bed and cuffed her Vaya viciously. “Do not
ever
wish for that. Do not even
think
it!”

Chryssie reeled in shock, a scarlet impression of her mistress’ hand blossoming on her cheek. Gaping, she stared at Froshenie, who was crouching in front of her like a feral beast, eyes ablaze, oblivious of her shameless nakedness. Then the Vaya burst into howling sobs. “You are not in love, you are deep in madness! What demon has possessed my little girl?”

Head downcast, but not weeping now, Froshenie slowly returned to her bed, drawing the covers over her head. Chryssie watched the swathed figure until her cheek no longer stung, but then she could bear the sight no longer and fled.

“W
hat
is
this?” Alhi gestured furiously at the double handful of flowers, dripping wet, that lay on the table in the war council room. Tahir had brought them, finding his Pasha alone in the giant room, leaned over map upon map of Hyperus and the Ionian Sea, deep in thought.

“Flowers, my Pasha. They litter the lake.”

“No flowers grow at the lake!”

“No, my Pasha. The people of Yannina take them there in the darkness of night and throw them onto the water. They cannot forget the execution of that girl, Shouhrae. I guess they are honoring — “

“Honoring? This is treason, Tahir, pure and simple! I punished that girl. They should heed the lesson. Not ‘honor’ the perpetrator!”

“It is only flowers, my Pasha. I thought it best to bring it to your attention, but I really think — “

“You do
not
think, you old fool! That much is painfully obvious. Going against me, be it with blades or flowers, is going against me. Rebellion is not something the Pasha can tolerate or take lightly. Those who do this must be punished - immediately.”

“We do not know who they are, my Pasha. I have guards at the lake, many, but in that sea of reeds around it … ” The guards captain shook his head.

“Then double the number of guards!”

“I already did. And redoubled it. But we have only so many men left in Yannina. The rest are marching on Argyrokastro.”

Alhi swept the flowers off the table. “You will find me those mutinous wretches, if you have to burn down all of Yannina to smoke them out!”

“Please, my Pasha. If we start a war on Yannina itself, with so few men — we might lose.”

“Lose? You have lost your edge, Tahir! In the old days, you would have given me a different answer.”

Tahir’s face went dark as old copper and his hands twitched, clenching and unclenching. He backed a step away from his liege. “If my Pasha no longer has faith in me, then let me go back to the ranks as a simple soldier.”

“You will do as you are ordered. And I order you to search all of Yannina, from cellar to chimney-top, even if you do not do it with a torch.”

“Search, my Pasha? But for whom?”

“You will find that Alexis brat. I am sure it is he who is throwing in the greater part of the verdure. So divinely romantic and tragic an example to the rest of Yannina.” Alhi was suddenly smiling, rubbing his hands in glee. “And a perfect culprit to execute in front of them.”

“We do not even know if he is still in Yannina, my Pasha.”

“For your sake, Tahir, I hope he is! Now why are you still here?”

The captain rushed out of the room, without first stopping to bow as was the custom. Alhi decided that the fear had merely made the old soldier forget it.

H
idden among the reeds, doctor Karayannis listened in astonishment to the harsh shouts of command that brought the soldiers rushing out of the reeds and back to the palace. They had been close this night, far too close! His found his chest hurting from holding back his breath. Beside him, Constantine made the sign of the cross. “God is merciful.”

“But the Pasha is not.” The doctor sulked, sucking in air. Playing this deadly game of hide and seek night after night had made him feel none the better at it. “When he tells his soldiers to stop doing one fiendish thing, you can be certain it is only to order them to do another.”

A youthful voice came out of the reeds and both men jumped. “What can he do that is more fiendish than what he has already done?”

The doctor regained his composure with considerable effort. “You are, in a way, happy to know so little about the evil ways of the world, Alexis. But you will get your chance soon enough. You will leave Yannina tonight. A rebel courier that has brought me news from the mountains is going back home. You will go with him. And for God’s sake obey him completely. Only his experience will get you safely out of the city.”

“Leave? I cannot. For God’s sake, doctor, how can I?”

“How can you stay? The Pasha’s soldiers are turning all of Yannina upside down to find you. When they are done lifting the last bed-cover and driving their swords through the last haystack, they will
not
go back to their Pasha and confess they have not found you. They will try again. And, sooner rather than later, someone will realize that the only place you can bear staying here in Yannina is close to the lake, close to poor Shouhrae.”

“And that someone will be right. I
cannot
leave, doctor. Here, I can at least hope that Shouhrae’s ghost will one day hear the crying of my heart and come to me.”

“Neither a good Christian nor a good doctor believes in ghosts, Alexis.”

Alexis started, as if slapped, and tears began drawing lines down the grime on his cheeks, glistening in the pale moonlight.