An Evil Eye Part 8

"I am here, valide."

At the band girl's signal, two slim black eunuchs bent forward to help the valide to her feet. She flinched impatiently, but at last she was upright between them.

"You, too, Yas.h.i.+m. I expect a visit, soon."

The harem ladies stood respectfully as the valide walked away, supported on either hand by eunuchs. Tulin, the flautist, hovered around them. Yas.h.i.+m found himself face-to-face with Sultan Mahmut's widowed sister.

"We miss you in the harem, Yas.h.i.+m."

Yas.h.i.+m blinked: the resemblance to Mahmut was strong. Poor Talfa. She should have borne a son before her husband died. With only Necla, she had returned to the imperial harem.

She took a lock of her hair and curled it on a pudgy finger.

"I've been thinking about the way you live ... outside," she said, in the little high voice of the harem. "I often wonder why that is?"

"It was settled many years ago," Yas.h.i.+m replied cautiously. "By your n.o.ble brother's wish."

"Peace be on him,"Talfa said, letting the curl of hair spring free. "Sultan Abdulmecid-I suppose he must have confirmed the arrangement."

Yas.h.i.+m hesitated. The new sultan had not revoked Yas.h.i.+m's permission to live outside the palace walls. Nor, on the other hand, had he confirmed it. Yas.h.i.+m guessed that Talfa knew as much.

"I am where I hope I can be most useful, hanum efendi," he replied. "And in the Abode of Bliss, are you not under the gaze of the all-powerful sultan?"

Talfa turned her head slightly and a dimple appeared on her cheek.

"The sultan has so many cares, Yas.h.i.+m efendi." She gave him a slanting gaze under her lashes. "It isn't fair that you should leave it all to him. And you were very good the other day. You could be so useful here, efendi."

She giggled lightly.

Yas.h.i.+m bowed, and felt his blood run cold.

26.

AS the caique turned up against the sluggish current, Palewski leaned back on the hard cus.h.i.+ons and stared at the footings of the new bridge.

For centuries, people had talked about throwing a bridge across the Golden Horn. On the Stamboul side lay the bazaars, the palaces, and the temples of faith; on the Pera side lived the foreign community, now a mixed bag of Italians and Levantines, who operated so many of the commercial enterprises of the empire. The great Byzantine emperor Justinian, who gave his city the incomparable Ayasofya, was supposed, by some, to have strung a chain of boats across the waterway. If he had done so, only the idea of the chain had survived: medieval Constantinople had protected itself from attack on the seaward side by hauling a ma.s.sive chain, whose links weighed fifty pounds apiece, across the mouth of the Horn. In 1453, when the city fell to the Ottoman Turks, Mehmet II had dragged his s.h.i.+ps over land to get around it.

Fifty years later, the renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci had submitted a design for a bridge shaped like a curving bow, or a crescent; the sketch was put on file and forgotten. Three centuries pa.s.sed. Then the late sultan-proponent of change everywhere in the empire-entrusted the project to his favorite, the Kapudan pasha Fevzi Ahmet, commander of the fleet. A man who had a reputation for getting things done.

Palewski sighed. Where the great plane tree that shaded the sh.o.r.eline on the Pera side had stood, the ground looked dusty and hard-baked. The pasha's bridge would be as ugly and practical as any of the new buildings that had disfigured the old city in the past twenty years-the commercial houses of Pera, the blank barracks of the New Troop on uskudar, the sultan's hideous new palace at Besiktas. Worst of all, he thought, it would dissolve the ancient distinction between Stamboul, with its palaces and domes and bazaars, and modern, commercial Pera across the Horn.

It was growing dark when the caique dropped him at the Balat stage. Palewski tipped the oarsman and made his way unhurriedly through the steep streets before stopping at a sunken doorway picked out in bands of red and white stone. The widow Matalya opened the door and Palewski removed his hat.

"Gone out, efendi," the old lady remarked. "Messengers back and forth, and I don't know what. Would you like to wait?"

Palewski agreed, and went on up to Yas.h.i.+m's apartment carrying his old portmanteau, stuffed with a shawl. Wrapped in the shawl was an excellent brandy-1821-which the French amba.s.sador had once given him, though Palewski had forgotten why. He sat on the divan while the familiar outlines of the flat bled into darkness; just before it became too dark to see, he stood up and fumbled with the lamp. In Yas.h.i.+m's kitchen various plates and bowls were covered with muslins. The brazier was barely warm: he poked his finger into the coals, then wiped the soot off absently on his coattails. At last he found a piece of bread and a painted gla.s.s, and settled down to read Yas.h.i.+m's latest Balzac.

At the beginning of chapter three he eased off his shoes and drew his feet up onto the divan.

27.

THE great oda, overlooking the Bosphorus, emptied out. The orchestra packed up their instruments. The ladies of the harem drifted away. The children were shepherded off by the black eunuchs, still sniffling. It had been a very remarkable day; not an auspicious one. There was lots to discuss later.

Only the lady Talfa remained, with her slave.

"Bring me coffee."

Yusel heaved herself to her feet and was about to waddle off when she raised her hands in surprise. "What have we here?"

On the carpet at the foot of the divan sat a little girl, fast asleep, with her head on her knees.

Yusel bent down and shook her gently. "Best run along now, little one."

The girl saw Yusel bending over her and scrambled to her feet, looking blankly from Yusel to the lady Talfa.

Yusel mimed a low temmena, a bow with the hand almost trailing the ground. The girl took the hint. She presented Talfa with a graceful bow.

She looked about five years old.

"Very pretty, very nice," Talfa murmured. The sad events of the afternoon had put her into a good mood. "And what, little one, is your name?"

"Roxelana, hanum."

"Charming! And tell me, Roxelana, who looks after you?"

Roxelana glanced down and traced a pattern in the carpet with her little slippered foot. "No one, hanum."

Talfa frowned. "No one? Where do you sleep?"

"I sleep-with the girls." She slid her foot against her leg. "Wherever I am, hanum."

"The Kislar aga knows about this? And Bezmialem?"

The little girl glanced up, biting her lip.

The princess let out an exasperated sigh. "It's a muddle, that's clear. Never mind, I'm glad we've had a little chat. I will see that something is done for you."

Roxelana looked down at her slippers and stirred her foot on the dark flags. "You won't send me away, hanum?"

"What a ridiculous notion!" Talfa giggled. "As long as you behave yourself, my dear, you'll stay in the harem forever and ever. Now run along. You can visit me this evening, after prayers, and we'll see what can be done."

The little girl bowed again, and walked with self-conscious solemnity to the door of the oda.

At the door she turned and flashed a timid smile. "Thank you, my princess."

Talfa waggled her fingers. A small smile hovered on her lips.

28.

AFTER the funeral the young man sold his sheep and the standing corn.

He thought long and hard about his inheritance, knowing the pasha would have to die.

It was not a question of rank. It was a matter of retribution.

A matter of honor. He had already chosen his weapon: it would be a knife. A knife because it was easy to conceal, and very sure. He had slaughtered many animals with this knife.

Istanbul was a long way off, of course. But he knew the roads the camels took, as far as the boundary of his province. There would be people after that, to show him the way.

No one would notice the knife.

29.

"BALZAC!" Palewski exclaimed, as Yas.h.i.+m came in. "Acceptable in small doses, with brandy. I thought you'd never come."

"It's Thursday," Yas.h.i.+m objected. "I always come."

"I know," Palewski said, tossing the book aside. "You have n.o.body else to cook for."

Yas.h.i.+m raised an eyebrow. "The Prophet, may he be praised, instructed the faithful to give charity," he replied, turning to the kitchen. "Especially to the friendless."

"Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jeste jak zdrowie," Palewski declaimed. "I am alone in a foreign land."

While Yas.h.i.+m set out the dishes, Palewski grumbled about the new bridge. "Ghastly. I had hoped, with the Kapudan pasha away with the fleet, that work would grind to a halt. No such thing-it's all modern methods now." He picked up a slice of stuffed mackerel and held it in midair. "You look tired, Yas.h.i.+m."

Yas.h.i.+m gave him a weary smile. "Husrev Pasha thought the Russians should know about their missing friend. The Fox was not very informative."

"And the Totenkopf?"

"He barely reacted. Picked up the skin and dropped it into the wastepaper basket."

"The Galytsins, Yas.h.i.+m, have lied for the tsar since the time of Ivan the Terrible. I once met a fellow who had been tutored in the Galytsin house. He said even their tutor told lies. Alexander Petrovich was a very good pupil, apparently." He ate the mackerel dolma. "Why did Husrev decide to let them know?"

Yas.h.i.+m shrugged. "In the interest of neighborly relations. Better it came from us than from the little man on the ferry."

"Hmm." Palewski reached for another dolma. "A Russian murdered on the islands. Russian amba.s.sador demanding explanations. A useful little crisis for the grand vizier."

"Useful?"

"Dust in the sultan's eyes, Yas.h.i.+m. Something to frighten him a bit. Husrev wants to show his mettle. You'd almost think that if this crisis hadn't arisen, he'd have been tempted to invent it himself."

Yas.h.i.+m shook his head. "The man had been in the water for weeks. Husrev Pasha couldn't have known the sultan was about to die."

"We all knew, Yas.h.i.+m."

"Not to the day. Not to the week."

Palewski sighed. "I suppose you're right. Husrev's no shrinking violet, but getting a Russian agent killed on the off chance? It's too much." He reached for another dolma. "And in the middle of nowhere, too."

"Chalki?"

"It's an island, for goodness' sake. A place you go to escape the heat, or for Greek lovers to meet by prearranged chance."

Yas.h.i.+m nodded. "That's been bothering me. Chalki is only for monks and fishermen." He picked up a cabbage leaf stuffed with pine nuts and rice. "I'd understand if a Russian military agent ended up dead in a Tophane backstreet. But Chalki's a trap for the killer."

"True." Palewski pursed his lips. "Why not meet in the Belgrade woods-or in a quiet cafe up the Bosphorus?"

Yas.h.i.+m blinked. "Because Chalki was where they had to meet."

Palewski looked perplexed. "Had to meet, Yash?"

"Obviously, yes, if the Russian came to meet someone who was on Chalki already."

"One of the monks?"

Yas.h.i.+m wasn't thinking of the monks.