Kamil Pasha: The Sultan's Seal Part 28

"There must have been an earlier message. Clearly, this one is meant to deceive anyone looking for her."

"Mother of G.o.d. If Sybil hadn't left that letter, we'd be off on a wild goose chase. Come on in here. Be quick, man."

Bernie runs into a room off the main hall, pulls a volume from the bookshelf, and extracts a key. He unlocks a drawer and pulls out two pistols. He checks to see if they are loaded, then holds one out to Kamil. Kamil points at his feet. "I'm armed."

"You mean with that religious mumbo jumbo in your boots?" Bernie snorts. "That won't get you very far against a bullet!"

Kamil pulls a needle-thin blade from his boot. "Allah helps those who help themselves." He opens his coat to reveal the holster on his hip. "I need some paper."

Bernie points to a writing desk.

Kamil takes out a blank sheet and writes several lines in Ottoman, the script flowing smoothly right to left. He signs with a flourish, then rummages in the drawer and pulls out a cylinder of sealing wax. He removes a small bra.s.s seal from his pocket and imprints the insignia of his office on the bottom of the letter and again on the envelope.

Sami is waiting at the door with the phaeton. Kamil takes him aside and hands him the envelope.

"You are to mount the fastest horse in your stables and ride ahead of us to Middle Village. Do you know where that is?"

"Yes, efendi. I know the area well."

"Take this letter directly to the headman of Middle Village. It asks him to take his sons and go to the commander of gendarmes, not to the police. Sybil Hanoum's life may be in danger. Do you understand?"

"Yes, efendi. Not the police."

"Go with him. The headman is to show them this letter. It commands the gendarmes to issue them weapons and to accompany them to Asma Sultan's summer house in Tarabya immediately. Allah willing, their presence will be superfluous."

Kamil jumps into the phaeton. Bernie is already seated, hunched forward and restlessly twisting the reins.

"If we alerted the British guards, we'd have to tell the amba.s.sador," Kamil shouts. "And I'm not sure of the loyalty of the police anymore. This is the best way."

The horses clatter down the drive toward the gate.

46.

A Hundred Braids I wanted a celebration, a proper setting for my response to Mary. Violet insisted on coming, saying she had prepared special foods for us. By the time we arrived at the sea hamam and the driver was dispatched with instructions to return in three hours' time, the lip of the sky bled magenta. But inside the walls of the sea hamam, we could see only the sky's unclouded blue eye following Violet as she spread the covers, set up the brazier, and unpacked the copper pans of dolma, cheese pastries, fruit, and savories. It was a feast. I slipped off my feradje, revealing a new gown of sheerest apricot silk under a striped satin tunic of apple and ginger. My b.r.e.a.s.t.s were wreathed in a transparent cloud of silk gauze. My hair was woven into a hundred braids wrapped in diamonds and pearls.

Mary had taken off her shoes. Her slim white feet dangled over the pool. In water, she was slippery as an eel. Like most women, she couldn't swim, but the water in the sea hamam wasn't very deep. I remember it made her anxious when I ducked below the surface. I used to slip along under the boards and burst up in a spray behind her so that she shrieked with fear. The hamam walls protected us from the wind, and the strait here was tamed, drawn continually like a fan across the sand. The water was so clear one could mistake it for a shadow.

I wondered whether anyone else had come here since we had abandoned it the previous year. The winter damp had warped some of the boards. I noticed that our mattress, the mattress Mary had hired someone to bring here in antic.i.p.ation of our first visit, was stained where it had not been stained before. I supposed anyone could have come here while we were gone, perhaps young boys thrilled at being masters of a realm that soon would be off-limits, haram, dangerous. Once we had spread our new quilt, though, we were almost as before.

"Why did you bring your maid?" she whispered, looking at Violet sitting in a cubicle near the brazier.

"Violet? She can serve us. Don't you like being served?" I c.o.c.ked my head at her, but I could see she hadn't decided whether I was joking.

"Well, I suppose."

"She insisted on coming and I couldn't say no. She's so unsettled by everything, even though my father has found her a good husband-so she won't be alone."

Mary looked at me expectantly, but I said nothing more.

I knew Mary didn't like to undress in front of strangers, so she wouldn't go into the water tonight. It was too cold, in any case.

"We'll just chat, then." I pulled the quilt out to the walkway circling the water and lay on it with my face to the sky. She came and sat next to me.

"Lie down, Mary. Come see the stars."

She let herself down, using her elbows, and arranged her skirts so that they covered her legs. She wore a simple white blouse. Her cap of hair shone gold in the dark.

The quilted satin smooth against our palms, we looked up into the square of night sky revealed by the geometry of the hamam walls.

"It looks like your hair, Jaanan. Braided with diamonds," she whispered.

I took her hand.

47.

Villa at Tarabya Agibbous moon floods the Bosphorus with light and throws into sharp relief the trees and bushes rushing by as the phaeton races north.

If anything happens to Sybil Hanoum," Kamil points out, "the blame would fall on Shukriye Hanoum, since the invitation is written in her name. Clever. I wonder why Shukriye Hanoum, though. She's not a threat to anyone."

"Well, someone sure doesn't like her."

After a while, Kamil adds, "Sybil Hanoum said she thought Perihan Hanoum was angry because she had wanted to marry Prince Ziya but he became engaged to Shukriye instead. Apparently Perihan Hanoum's marriage is unhappy."

Bernie slaps the reins across the horses' backs. "Well, there's a motive to hate Shukriye enough to set her up. What do you know about her mother, this Asma Sultan?"

"A rather formidable but harmless lady, according to Sybil Hanoum."

Bernie grimaces. "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand."

"Pardon?"

"Shakespeare. Macbeth."

"It might be Perihan Hanoum at the villa, not her mother," Kamil cautions.

"Well, we'll see what we're up against. The woman or her daughter. Maybe the whole harem." He laughs nervously and turns his wind-reddened face to Kamil. "Think we can handle this?"

Kamil doesn't smile. "We don't know who else will be there. Perhaps the grand vizier himself." Grimly, "But I'm ready for a fight."

Bernie grins. "I'll bet you are." He pats his holster. "I'm glad you and this other friend of mine here are along for the ride."

By the time Kamil and Bernie reach the turnoff beyond the village of Tarabya, the moon has contracted to a mottled white disk.

"Asma Sultan's villa is farther north, I believe." Kamil uses his handkerchief to wipe the dust from his face as the phaeton slows at a crossroad.

"Git up," Bernie urges the horses.

The road ascends sharply again and the horses strain. A stand of pines and cypresses blocks the view before the vista opens onto an expanse of water milky in the moonlight. The phaeton picks up speed. After a while, they hurtle downhill again. Kamil can make out the enormous bulk of a house silhouetted against the reflected light.

"That must be it." Bernie points. "Strange. I don't see any lights."

"They might have their shutters closed."

The phaeton pulls up to the wrought-iron gate.

"There should be a night watchman," observes Kamil as he jumps to the ground. "He's probably asleep."

He peers around the gate, but the guardhouse is empty. Bernie has come up beside him.

He looks through the gate at the dark house. "Looks like no one's home. Do you think we got the wrong house?"

"It matches the description they gave us in the village."

"Does she have another one? She's a sultan's daughter. They have cartloads of money."

"It's possible. I suppose the invitation could have been to Perihan Hanoum's villa or even the vizier's villa. They all have their own konaks and summer houses."

"Do you know where they are? We'll have to check them all out, one at a time."

"I don't." Kamil tenses. "We'd have to go back to the village and ask the headman."

"Well, then, let's get on with it." Bernie looks closely at Kamil, staring at the dark villa. "What is it?"

Kamil shudders and turns. "I don't know. I think you have a saying, 'A crow walked across my grave.'"

"I never heard that one, buddy."

"You know, the old Greek name of this village, Tarabya, was Pharmakeus." He thinks of his father's body being washed in the mosque at this very moment, prepared for burial tomorrow morning.

"Pharmakeus. The medicine man?"

"The poisoner. Medea was said to have thrown away her poison here."

"Well, this place gives me the dithers. Let's get out of here." He climbs into the phaeton.

Holding the reins, he turns to Kamil. "You don't suppose she really did go to visit Shukriye Hanoum?"

"I suppose that's a possibility. But why would she write something different in her letter?"

Bernie shakes his head. "Maybe showing off for her sister. There's always been a kind of rivalry between them. Maitlin's the successful one." He flicks the reins. The phaeton strains after the horses. "Sybil's the one with fantasies. She's been stuck here too long looking after my uncle. No wonder she's invented herself a whole Orient of her own."

48.

The Net The moon appeared in our square of sky, bleaching us of color.

Mary turned her head to me. "Thank you for being a good friend to me. I wouldn't have lasted here without you." She moved her face forward and kissed me chastely on the lips.

I squeezed her hand. She lay with her head flung back, letting the moonlight seep into her eyes. I heard the chortling of the kettle boiling on the coals.

After a long while, she whispered, "Do you remember the sugared almonds?"

I didn't. "Yes, of course."

"And the time we caught a fish in here."

"You caught it with your hands."

"It was weak and tired. Who knows how long it had been trying to get out."

"It's cruel to have a net around the pool."

"Are they afraid the women will escape?" she asked, laughing at her own wit.

"I think rather it's to keep the men from looking in."

"Men will get in anyway," she said with a resigned certainty.

I leaned on my elbow and looked at her. Her hair was white. I let it flow through my hand.

"Together we're safe," I a.s.sured her.

She turned to me, surprised. The blue of her eyes came back into focus.

"Will you come?" she asked hesitantly.