The Lake of Sorrows (29 page)

Dimitros gazed after her for a very long time.

Then he turned to face his friend, although he did not look at him. “Tell me the truth, Karayannis.”

Karayannis did not look at Dimitros, either. “About what?”

“Come now. I am no fool, please do not treat me like one. Either she is innocent and you all fear my reaction.” Dimitros was gazing into his wine, reluctant to continue. “Or she is guilty and you all fear my reaction.”

“There have been … rumors. Idle gossip in the seedier taverns of Yannina.”

“And with the sailors, those rumors have drifted across the sea to the seedier taverns of Venice. And thence to the brothels.”

Looking up sharply, Karayannis saw Dimitros shake his head with a wan smile. “No, my friend, I do not frequent the brothels, neither in Venice nor anywhere else. Although my friends among the merchants have chided me often enough for not availing myself of the many opportunities to do so, as they are fond of doing.” He glanced again at the door by which Froshenie had left. “I would rather put a bullet in my brain, were I a man with the courage to do such things.”

“You are a man of more courage than all those fat, gossip-spewing libertines taken together! They risk little more than a chiding from their confessor, if
he
has the courage to risk their next donation to the church. You risk your life!”

“There are different kinds of courage, perhaps. But then, my friend, have some faith in what little courage I might have — and tell me the truth.”

“
I
do not have the courage.” The doctor looked down in shame. “To tell you the truth.”

“Then you already have. So it
is
true.” It was no question. “Not just the rancorous blabbering of a few drunken seamen with too much Venetian wine in them.” Dimitros leaned back in his chair and hid his face in his hands. “I should never have left her alone so often. The loneliness I have made her endure, the — “

“For God’s sake, Dimitros.
She
is the one having an affair, not you!”

“Can I blame her?”

“
Can
you blame her? What possible reason could there be for
not
blaming her?”

“You do not understand her. Nobody ever did. Her father wanted a son and consoled himself by raising her as if she was that son. Then he died, and she was suddenly the child of the Patriarch who wanted her to become a woman after all.”

Dimitros looked at his friend, eyes imploring the doctor to show some sign of understanding. None came.

“Surely you see it? You are a doctor of Genoa — an enlightened man. She was like the bird released from its cage - and then forced back into it. And then he gave her to me, like all women are given away whether they want to or not.”

“She was always very fond of you. And she could never have been given to a gentler and kinder man, Dimitros.”

“Perhaps, my friend. But she could have been given to a husband that did not always leave her. Oh, I guess there was a kind of freedom in it, but only if she could stay inside this house, and my wealth perhaps made it possible to make our house a world in itself. She may have thought she loved me for it, but perhaps it was only … gratitude. Fondness, as you call it.”

Karayannis’ voice was rising slowly, like a slumbering volcano finally waking. “And then she meets a Pasha’s son, a man that is everything her husband was not, is that it? Do you hate yourself so much that you will see him as a better man than you? The Beast’s cub, who has seduced scores of women and knows how to pretend to be gentle in his passion? And because it was danger and rebellion, because she felt wanted and not just bartered, she fell in love with him, is that it? How can you be such a
fool
, Dimitros? You should … discipline her. You
own
her!”

This eruption of fury from his usually mild-mannered friend made Dimitros blink. “What are you saying? You love her as well as — “

“Yes, God help me, if He will help someone who does not really believe in him. I love Froshenie and I was always the one who told you to spend more time in Yannina than abroad. But do you not understand
why?
”

“Truly, my friend, I do not — oh, no!”

Karayannis’ head had never been lower, his gaze never darker. “Oh, yes!
Now
I find the courage to tell you the truth, it seems. I never stopped loving Froshenie. How could any man stop loving her, when once
in
love with her? But I love you, too, like a brother. Every time you left, I shivered in fear of myself. Every time Froshenie came down with one of her accursed fevers, I needed my opiates more than any of my patients. Otherwise, how could I trust myself
not
to betray you and confess my true feelings to her? And those feelings are not those of a brother, no matter how desperately I have struggled to make them so!”

Dimitros looked at him for a very long time, then spoke ever so gently. “Forgive me, my friend, but this is a night for brutal truths, it seems. And it seems to me that it is not courage or love that is opening your heart to me now.” He took a deep breath. “It is jealousy.”

“So be it. I will not deny it.” The doctor moaned. “I thought it was the opium that sustained me, but I realized it was the knowledge that she refused the advances of all the men that were less honorable than I imagined myself to be. That she should be yours, that I could live with, at least when fortified by opium. But that she should finally succumb to another man and that man the son of the beast Pasha! Only their Allah saved Muhtar, by keeping him healthy so that he never needed my attentions. Had I been allowed near him, I would have given him twoscore different poisons and laughed all the way to gallows or the lake!”

“Does she love him?”

The question, barely whispered by Dimitros, hung between them like a ghost neither wanted to see.

At long last, Karayannis forced an answer from himself, with suffocating bitterness. “Yes. She loves him. He is her light, her air, her warmth, her … It is like a fever I cannot cure and God knows I would if I could.” He clawed at his own arms, shivering and could not stop his brutal next words. “But only death can cure her.”

“Or … being united with him?”

Aghast, the doctor gaped at him. “Dimitros! I refuse to believe this. Do not have the vanity to try being a saint! You and I have risked our lives for the freedom of all Greeks while she has lain in your own bed with the son of the tyrant we are fighting! She — “

“Be silent!” Dimitros found himself standing, leaning over the table, his teeth bared like a predator’s. “She is
my
wife and not yours, and even if she has made a cuckold of me, noone will speak ill of her in my presence. Not even you!”

“You are mad! Mad! For her. Like
he
is. And even the Pasha himself.
That
is also whispered in the seedier taverns in — “

“Unless you leave this house now, my friend, you and I will have to suffer the ridicule of our seconds.”

“Seconds? Ridicule?”

“Yes. While we exchange shots all morning until one of us finally manage to hit the other. I know I have never held a dueling pistol, or any other pistol, so I can safely challenge you. Any unfairness will be in your favor!”

Speechless, Karayannis rose from the table and left.

A
s the door closed behind Karayannis, Froshenie’s voice came out of the darkness behind Dimitros. “You must never lose a friend like him, Dimitros.”

He turned almost reluctantly. She was standing in the doorway to the long corridor that led to the house’s numerous bedchambers, shivering in a thin, silken robe.

He put an arm around her and gently guided her back towards their bedchamber. “Even friends have arguments. It is nothing. I am sorry we woke you. You must be exhausted.”

A smile was beyond her. “You look somehow tired to me yourself.”

Dimitros’ smile was not impressive, either. “Indeed. The long trip, my business affairs. It is all getting harder with each passing year, Froshenie. My last night in Venice, I was thinking of all the important things in my life that I set aside for this country’s freedom. Yet I miss them all. I have missed you terribly, Froshenie.”

“You have been missed, too, Dimitros. By the children, our Vaya.” She finally managed a pale imitation of a smile. “Even by the good doctor.”

“Yes, the children seemed very happy to see me. It was wise of you to have them stay with their uncle until this terrible fever is gone from our house. But what about you, Froshenie? Did you miss me, too?”

“I missed you from my life, Dimitros. That was … that was extremely difficult.”

He helped get back into bed and carefully arranged her covers. “You will not have to do that for a long time now. I might have to travel again, if only to settle my business affairs in Venice once and for all, but then I will come home for good and never leave again, Froshenie. I promise you. We will grow old and grey together.”

“I do not think I will ever manage to get old, Dimitros. I have a feeling I will die young - and fairly soon.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed and softly drew her to into his arms. “That is just the fever speaking, Froshenie. You will see, I shall leave my affairs to men younger than I, while I stay here with you.” He gently pushed her back on the pillows and, as she tried to protest, put a finger on her lips. “Being the man I am, I will probably bore you to tears within a week and you will ask me to go away again.”

She rolled over, away from him, shoulders rising and falling unevenly with dry sobs she could not suppress.

As she did so, a small object slipped out from under the covers. Gold shone faintly in the light from the lone candle on her bedstand - a delicate crucifix, adorned with tiny precious stones. Picking it up, he clenched his hand so tightly around it that it crumpled, its ends biting into the flesh of his palm and his fingers.

Then he bent down to kiss her lightly on the cheek, like a brother. “Try to get some sleep, Froshenie. It has been an exhausting day for both of us.”

Dimitros put out the candles and walked about the darkened house restlessly, ending up in his library. There he stopped in front of the portrait of Daskalogiannis’ brother. Daskalogiannis, the man who had made a fortune building ships, but had chosen to spend it fighting the Ottomans for the freedom of Crete - and had been flayed alive on a long-ago, sun-drenched day on the quay under the battlements of the Heraklion castle, without uttering a sound. While his brother, held by pitiless men who forced his eyes open, had gone slowly mad at the sight.

At length, he lowered his head in the darkness. “There are many kinds of suffering, too, I guess.”

Opening his tortured hand, he let the mangled crucifix drop onto his desk, and looked quizzically at the blood dripping from his palm, as if it belonged to someone else.

Then he quietly left the house.

“I
t
cannot
be them! Are you telling me that is my army?”

“I fear it is, my Pasha.” Tahir spoke very quietly.

Alhi, standing beside Tahir and Eminee on the battlements of his palace, stared at the lonely cart in the distance. A sharp-eyed guard had seen it and the three soldiers marching with it, trudge down the hill-path towards Yannina only moments ago. With the dying sun behind it, all a man could see was the cart, the ox drawing it and the silhouettes of the three soldiers.

Behind him, Tahir cleared his throat. “Do I send out some cavalrymen to … help them, my Pasha?”

Growling, Alhi turned on his heel. “No. They can do their own marching. If they have failed me, they should not even come back here.”

The sharp-eyed guard’s voice stopped him in his tracks. “By Allah, it is Muhtar Bey. On the cart.”

Eminee pounced on him. “How do you know? Is he dead? Why did you not tell me?”

Shoving the man aside before he could even begin to answer and ignoring Alhi, she ran down the stairs to the courtyard, rapping out orders. “Tahir! Send out those cavalrymen after all. Tell them to bring extra horses. And a horse-drawn cart instead of that lumbering thing out there. And blankets. And send a rider for doctor Karayannis. With an extra horse for the doctor. Why are you standing there?
Move!
”

“W
ill he live, doctor?” Eminee’s spoke softly, as if afraid to even ask. Standing beside her, Alhi was biting his lip, perhaps to
avoid
asking. Tahir, discreetly posted in a corner of the corridor outside Muhtar’s bedchamber, could not help stepping forward.

Doctor Karayannis quietly closed the door to the bedchamber behind him. “The bullet went in about a hand’s breadth below his right nipple. Roughly between two ribs, so it was not flattened, as they often are. That made the exit wound smaller.”

Alhi snarled at him. “We do not need a doctor’s book about the
wound.
Tell us about
my son.
”

“I know you want me to tell you that he will most certainly live. But I cannot. The bullet has nicked the lung, he has lost a lot of blood and the wound has been treated only very crudely after … the battle. His heart, though, is unhurt and he is young and strong.”

“You will save him!” The razor-sharp order came from Eminee.

“I will do my utmost, my lady.” The doctor’s face was glistening with sweat already.

Eminee frowned, as she noticed, for the first time, how disheveled the doctor looked. “You look somewhat worn yourself, doctor. Are you ill?”

Karayannis blushed. “No, my lady. I merely had to … stay with a patient all night.”

Sniffing like a hunting-dog, Alhi stepped in closer to the doctor. “And the patient required opiates, I perceive. Do not tell me the patient was yourself!”

There was a long silence before Karayannis answered. “It was, my Pasha. I am … sick at heart.”

Alhi laughed mirthlessly. “It must be something in the air in Yannina - first my son, now you.” He suddenly grabbed the doctor by the collar and shook him like an empty goatskin. “You are the best doctor in this accursed city and my son needs you! So if I see you cross-eyed with opium before he is hale and hearty again, I shall burn you alive on a bonfire of the accursed stuff. Do you understand?”