The Architect's Apprentice Part 24

Her father had friends like himself, men who cherished wisdom. Conversos and Catholics, and an Arab among them. Still, there was plenty of fear and suspicion. Heretics were burned at the stake, the stench of smouldering flesh polluting the wind. Her father, whose health had begun to deteriorate, declared that in a year she would be married to a distant cousin. A wealthy merchant she had never met before and already hated. Pleading, crying, she tried to convince him not to send her off, but to no avail.

The ship she took to meet her fiance was raided by corsairs. After weeks of suffering, none of which she wished to remember, she found herself in Istanbul, enslaved. She was sold to a court musician who happened to be an acquaintance of Sinan. The man was a gentle soul and treated her well, allowing her, upon her request, to have pen and paper. His two wives, however, tormented her every day. Jealous of her youth and beauty, they bitterly complained that she did not help them the way a concubine should. They had checked her head to toe and could verify that she had no parts missing, but still they doubted she was a woman. Even though she had been converted to Islam and renamed Nergiz, she was secretly drawing Christian churches with crosses and bells. The musician listened to their carping, but not even once did he ask to see the sketches to which they referred.

One day, while the musician was away on a journey, his wives ripped Sancha's drawings to pieces and beat her so badly that her clothes were torn to tatters. The same evening he returned. Her fate might have been different had he been back a few days later, when her bruises had healed. As it was, he saw her marred face, swollen eyes. He also found the shredded sketches. One of them had escaped intact. Taking this, he showed it to Sinan. To his surprise the Chief Royal Architect was impressed and keen to meet the owner of the drawing. The musician explained to Sinan that it belonged to a concubine of his, a young damsel, though no longer a virgin, pretty as sunshine, whom he was happy to give to Sinan as a gift. He could do with her what he pleased. If the girl remained in his house, his wives would trample on her like a shoddy rug.

That was how Sancha ended up in the Chief Royal Architect's house. She was allowed to use the library and make her sketches so long as she helped Kayra, the master's wife, with the housework from morning till noon. A year into this life, Sinan began to tutor her. He was pleased with this unlikely pupil, yet never considered taking her to construction sites.

The week Sinan laid the foundation stone for the Shehzade Mosque, Sancha begged to be allowed to work with him. Refused repeatedly, she took hold of a pair of scissors and cut her long hair, the colour of burnt umber, which she left in a pile at the master's door. When Sinan came out the next morning, he stepped on a silky turf of hair. He understood. He provided her with boy's clothes. When she put them on he was half amused and half astounded. She could easily pa.s.s as a lad. The only obstacle was her voice. And her hands. It could be solved by silence and a pair of gloves. Sinan decided she would be his mute apprentice.

Sancha told Jahan all of this one afternoon while they were working on the Molla Celebi Mosque. A hexagonal domed baldachin, four turrets with domical caps. The two of them sat outside on a bench facing the half-dome over the mihrab.

'No one knows?' Jahan asked.

'The master's wife, Kayra. She does.'

'Who else?'

'Only one,' said Sancha. 'This Italian architect, Tommaso. He is always following our master. He heard me speak once, I'm afraid.'

Jahan was about to reply when he caught a sound like that of a nocturnal animal rustling off to the side. He turned back with fright. There was an eerie quiet, and he sensed, with all his being, that they had not been alone. His heart thudding against his chest, he stood up, glanced around. He saw a few men in the distance, prowling around. One of them he recognized. It was Salahaddin's brother. Jahan remembered their bitter exchange at the cemetery. He knew the young man hated Sinan, holding him responsible for his brother's death. Jahan feared he might have come here to harm the master. Then again, they could be thieves. There were always a few around construction sites, looking for materials to loot. Not wanting to alarm Sancha and add to her distress, he watched the intruders a bit longer and kept his suspicions to himself.

'I saw you with Tommaso,' Jahan said after a pause. A shadow crossed his face as a new thought occurred to him. 'He is blackmailing you.'

Sancha lowered her eyes.

'But you are not rich. What does he want from you?'

'He is not after riches,' Sancha said, twisting the end of her shirt between her fingers. 'He wants the master's designs.'

Jahan looked at her in horror. 'Did you give them to him?'

'All he's got is a few mediocre designs. He thinks they belong to Master Sinan. I drew them for him.'

A smile pa.s.sed between them. A sense of fellowship, which, had Jahan not known the truth about her, he would have called brotherhood. What Sancha didn't say, then or later, and it would take Jahan a while to discover, was that there was a secret buried in her heart. It had kept her strong. And loyal to the core. On the loneliest nights when she cried herself to sleep, the thought of him being under the same roof, even if a life away, the thought of him caring for her, even if in a fatherly way, had warmed her soul.

She was his apprentice. She was his concubine. She was his slave. And she was no older than his daughter. Yet Yusuf Nergiz Sancha Garcia de Herrera, a soul who carried too many names in her slender body, was in love with Master Sinan.

They never found another chance for a talk as intimate and honest as this one. The same day a new accident occurred. A stone block slipped off the pier ab.u.t.ting the prayer hall and fell to the ground, wounding two galley slaves and killing Sinan's dedicated foreman, Snowy Gabriel.

The accidents were sporadic enough to be attributed to fate, but they were also strangely similar, strangely persistent.

If not put to use, iron rusts, woodwork crumbles, man errs, Sinan said. Work we must.

Following in his footsteps, the four apprentices toiled as though tomorrow were the Day of Judgement and they must finish before everything turned to dust. They constructed Friday mosques, masjids, madrasas, Qur'an schools, bridges, baths, hospitals, lazarettos, alms houses, granaries and caravanserais for travellers from far and wide. Most of these were ordered by the Sultan; others, by his mother, wives, daughters and succeeding viziers.

Not everything Sinan built was commissioned by the wealthy and the mighty, however. The shrines, to begin with. These, too, the apprentices put up in earnest. Many a time their master paid for these himself. And the sole reason they kept erecting them year in, year out, was because someone somewhere had seen them in a dream. Sinan, in his capacity as the Master of the Royal Architects, not only felt responsible for raising structures and surveying towns; he also oversaw holy dreams.

Anybody could come with such a demand a soldier, an innkeeper, a scullion, even a mendicant. They knocked on Sinan's door, respectful but resolute, and secretly proud, as though they had been entrusted with an important letter from the skies. Then they related their dreams. More often than not, these were about saints and sages who were terribly upset that their graves had gone to rack and ruin. Or martyrs who, showing where their remains lay, asked for a proper funeral. Or mystics executed for heresy and buried furtively, if at all.

The dead in the visions were impatient, their behests urgent. So were the dream-pet.i.tioners as Jahan called them. They expected the architect and the apprentices to stop doing whatever they were doing such as building a Friday mosque and follow them. Some even made threats. 'It's a powerful saint, this one. If you don't do as he says, he'll put a curse on you.'

Every week one of the apprentices was put in charge of the dream-suitors. His impossible task was to listen to every one and weed out those who were honest from the crooks. This is how many a Thursday afternoon Jahan found himself perched on a stool facing strangers. There would be a scribe by his side, bent over the table, scratching his pen without a break. No matter how full of gibberish or trivia, every appeal had to be written down. Sinan would greet the pet.i.tioners cordially. He would announce that his wise apprentice was here to hear what they had to share. Flicking a sideways glance in Jahan's direction, he would leave with an impish smile at the edge of his lips. Under the scrutiny of dozens of eyes, studying his every move, Jahan often broke into a sweat. The room felt small, stuffy. Suddenly there was not enough s.p.a.ce for these people and their vast expectations.

They came from everywhere. Bustling ports and forsaken hamlets. And they implored the apprentices to go and build everywhere a town, a farmstead or a property home only to snakes. Most of the dream-pet.i.tioners were men of varying ages. There were schoolboys accompanied by their fathers. Occasionally, there would be a woman. She would wait outside while her husband or brother pa.s.sed on her dreams.

Once some peasants requested that a Byzantine fountain, which supplied water to a village, be restored. Although they had applied to the kadi, their efforts had so far been in vain. Then a tinker had a holy dream. A forceful and furious saint confided in him that beneath the fountain lay the remnants of a Sufi dergah. As long as the water kept flowing the souls of the dervishes rested in peace. Now that the water had run dry, they were disturbed. Therefore the fountain had to be repaired without delay.

When Jahan offered his master an account of his interviews, Sinan singled out this story as one to which they should give serious attention.

'But, master, do you believe they are telling the truth?' Jahan objected.

'They need water; it doesn't matter what I believe.'

They rebuilt the fountain, cleaning the ditches that brought water from the mountains. The villagers were pleased; so was Sinan.

It was around this time that a miller arrived. He said that while grinding grain he had heard a woman singing sweet and captivating. Fearing it must be a djinn, he had headed for the hills. The next day the voice awaited him, although he had thrown salt over his left shoulder and spat three times on fire. The village elder advised him to read the Qur'an before going to sleep. This he did. That same night a woman appeared in his dream. Her face shone as if there were a lantern under her skin. Her l.u.s.trous, blonde hair spilled on to her shoulders. She explained that she had been strangled upon the orders of the Mother Sultana, though she did not give her name. Since then her soul had been roaming the earth, searching for her body, which was deep under the sea. Recently a fisherman had pulled up the tortoisesh.e.l.l comb that had been on her head and come loose when she was thrust into the sea with a rock tied to her feet. Not knowing what to do with it, the fisherman had put it in a box. She wanted the miller to find the comb and bury it as though it were her flesh and bone. In this way, she would have a tomb and find some peace.

'Why didn't she reveal herself to the fisherman?' Jahan asked incredulously.

'He's trouble,' the miller said. 'He lives a stone's throw away from Rumelian Castle. There's a cottage, blue like a robin's egg.'

'Have you been there?'

'Of course not, effendi. She told me all that. I'm a poor man, my wife's ailing, I've got no sons to lend me a hand. I can't ride that far.'

Jahan understood what was being asked of him. 'I can't go either. I'm needed here.'

The disappointment in the man's eyes went through Jahan like a flamed arrow. Still, his biggest surprise came when Sinan, once he told him the story, urged Jahan to go to nose around. So, the next day, the elephant and the mahout were on their way.

Finding the fisherman was easy; speaking to him, impossible. With eyes dark with bitterness and a mouth that clearly hadn't smiled in ages, he was a callous soul. One look at him and Jahan knew there was no way he would let him rummage through his belongings. Jahan made another plan. As soon as they were behind the hills, he halted the elephant and jumped down. After tying Chota to a willow, which the animal could have pulled up without much effort, he said, 'I'll be back in a moment.'

Quiet as an owl, Jahan retraced his path. He tiptoed around the garth and into the shed, which stank of fish. He found a few boxes but none of them had a comb inside. He was about to leave when he caught sight of a basket on the floor. His hands shaking, he peered into it. The comb was there. Mottled brown and amber, cracked at the edges. He pocketed it and took to his heels.

Thankfully Sinan didn't inquire how the article had been acquired. Instead he said, 'We need to lay her to rest. She needs a tombstone.'

'But ... can we bury a comb in place of a body?' asked Jahan.

'If it's the only thing left from a person, I don't see why not.'

By a mulberry tree, Sinan and the apprentices dug deep. They placed the comb inside. As they threw earth on the grave, they prayed. In the end, the woman in the miller's dream, whether real or not, had a headstone. One that said: Pray for the soul of one whose name was not discovered Loved by the Almighty, He hath known her always.

In the spring of 1575 the astronomer Takiyuddin began to visit Sinan more often. The two of them would retreat to the library, talking for hours. There was something new and big in the air; Jahan could sniff it out like freshly baked bread something that excited these elderly men as though they were boys again.

The Chief Royal Astronomer and the Chief Royal Architect had always respected each other. Time and again, Takiyuddin had been present at the inauguration ceremony of a mosque, helping with the measurements. Likewise, he consulted Sinan about the laws of arithmetic, on which both were experts. The two men read effortlessly in several languages Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Latin and a bit of Italian. Over the years they had exchanged a mult.i.tude of books and ideas and, Jahan suspected, quite a few secrets. If their fondness for numbers was one thing they had in common, another was their diligence. Both believed that the only way to thank Allah for the skills He had given them was to labour hard.

Despite everything they shared, they could not have been more different. Takiyuddin was a man of pa.s.sion. His face was an open book that revealed every emotion crossing his heart. When joyful, his eyes lit up; when thoughtful, he fingered his rosary so hard that the string would almost snap. In his obsession with learning he was rumoured to have hired grave-robbers to bring him corpses to study. Should anyone ask why a stargazer might show interest in the human body, he would say G.o.d had designed the small cosmos and the big cosmos in parallel. He often complained about the arrogance of the ulema and the ignorance of the people. With so much fire in his spirit it caused his friends no small amount of worry that he might burn himself. Fervent and animated, he stood in contrast with Sinan, who rarely showed his fervour and had, overall, a placid demeanour.

Except now Sinan, too, seemed excited, if not apprehensive. He spent his days reading and drawing, which was normal, but he also looked out of the window in a distant and distracted way, which was not. A couple of times Jahan heard him ask the servants whether anyone had brought him a message.

One Wednesday, as the apprentices were working in the master's house, the awaited courier arrived with a scroll. Under prying eyes, Sinan broke the seal, read the letter. His face, stiff with suspended eagerness, softened into a smile of relief.

'We are building an observatory!' he announced.

A house to study the dark expanse above their heads. It would be bigger than any that had been erected before, East and West. Astronomers from all over the world would come here to hone their skills. Sultan Murad had promised to support Takiyuddin in his wish to discover the invisible dome.

'This will alter our grasp of the universe,' Sinan remarked.

'Why would it concern us?' asked Davud.

In response Sinan said that knowledge, ilm, was a carriage pulled by many horses. If one of the steeds began to gallop faster, the other horses, too, would speed up and the traveller in the carriage, the alim, would benefit from it. Improvement in one field backed improvements in other fields. Architecture had to be friends with astronomy; astronomy with arithmetic; arithmetic with philosophy; and so on.

'One more thing,' Sinan said. 'You are going to build the observatory. I shall look after you but it will be your achievement.'

The apprentices gaped at him in disbelief. They had worked upon many buildings but had never created one on their own.

Nikola said, 'Master, we are indebted. You have honoured us.'

'May G.o.d light your path,' said Sinan.

In the weeks ahead the apprentices presented their designs to the master. Having been given a site on a hill in Tophane, they checked the soil, measured the moisture. Even though still vying with one another to be the master's favourite, they joined forces. The excitement of building together outweighed any jealousies.

Takiyuddin, in the meantime, was the happiest soul in the empire and the most restless. Hovering about the site, asking questions that made no sense to anyone, he could barely wait to see the completion of his beloved observatory. Weeks into the construction, he was seized by a fear of death. Morbidly fascinated with accidents and diseases, he was afraid of departing this life before the edifice was finished. Never before had Jahan seen an intelligent man drive himself so mad with worry.

Instruments were brought from near and far. Books and celestial maps were gathered for the collection to be housed inside the observatory. Round and s.p.a.cious, flooded with light pouring through high windows, with a staircase that spiralled down into a bas.e.m.e.nt chamber, the library was a place Jahan was fond of and he was proud of having contributed to its design.

As the construction progressed, Jahan was able to learn more about Takiyuddin. Born in Damascus, schooled in Nablus and Cairo, he had then settled in Istanbul, trusting it to be the right city for his skills. Here he had thrived, climbing all the way up to the rank of Chief Royal Astronomer. Jahan would later learn that it was he who had instigated this whole venture, convincing the Sultan of the necessity for a royal observatory. That, however, did not mean he had persuaded everyone in the court. Hugely respected by some, loathed by others, of friends and foes Takiyuddin had plenty.

Benefiting from the findings of the mathematician Jamshid al-Kashi and the tools perfected by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Takiyuddin was keen on furthering the achievements of the Samarkand Observatory, built by Ulugh Bey an astronomer, a mathematician and a Sultan. Almost two hundred years ago, he said, the finest scholars had unravelled many secrets of the universe. Their accomplishments, rather than being refined, had been forsaken and forgotten. Precious knowledge had been lost for future generations. There were gems of wisdom, far and wide, waiting to be found, like caskets of treasure deep under the ground. Learning, therefore, was a matter less of discovering than of remembering.

Takiyuddin often alluded to Tycho Brahe a star-gazer in Frangistan. By coincidence, at the time the apprentices were laying the foundation stone of their observatory, Brahe's was being erected in far-off Uraniborg. The two men, instead of locking horns with each other, had been exchanging letters of mutual esteem and admiration.

'We love the same woman,' Takiyuddin said.

'What d'you mean?' Jahan faltered.

'The sky, we are both besotted with her. Sadly, we are mortal. After we are gone, others will love her.'

Once the celestial instruments had been placed in their respective spots, on heavy cast-iron stands, Takiyuddin showed Sinan's apprentices around. Everywhere he turned Jahan saw astronomical clocks with three dials, exquisitely crafted and precise. In a chamber towards the back they noticed water pumps of different sizes, which Takiyuddin said had nothing to do with the azure but were simply another pa.s.sion of his. Upstairs there was a ma.s.sive astrolabe with six rings dhat al-halaq. This was used to a.s.sess the lat.i.tudes and longitudes, so they were told. Another device, libna, mounted on the wall, consisted of two large bra.s.s quadrants and helped to calculate the declinations of the stars and the sun. Lengthy pieces of wood, which by their humble appearance seemed meaningless, turned out to measure the parallax of the moon. An implement with a copper ring a.s.sessed the azimuths of the stars; the one next to that determined the equinoxes. Jahan's favourite was a s.e.xtant that measured the distances between the celestial bodies.

In each room they entered they found a device that unravelled yet another secret of the blue firmament. The court astronomer explained that with heavenly bodies, as with so many things in life, one had to find the right guide. Rather than taking the moon as his reference point, he studied two wandering stars: one was called Venus, the other Aldebaran a name Jahan liked so much he kept repeating it to himself, as though it were poetry.

Unlike the instruments, which were new, the books and ma.n.u.scripts in the library were ages old. It was here that Takiyuddin kept his treatises on geometry, algebra and the forces of motion. He was particularly pleased that in a recent decree, addressed to the kadis of Istanbul, the Sultan had ordered the people who possessed valuable collections to hand these over to the royal observatory. When you receive this order, find those books based on astronomy and geometry, and give them to my honourable astronomer, Takiyuddin, so that he may continue his excellent work, under my protection.

With an endors.e.m.e.nt so strong they thought nothing could go wrong. Immaculate inside, immaculate outside, the observatory, their observatory, with its windows iridescent in the evening sun, shone atop a hill in Tophane.

The opening ceremony was glorious. Above their heads the sun hovered bright and generous, the sky a seamless blue. Regardless, the air felt crisp and chilly, as though both the winter and the summer had wanted to be present on such a day. Seagulls swooped far ahead, not shrieking for once; swallows dipped and drank water from the marble fountain in the courtyard. The smell of myrrh on their robes and beards mingled with the sweet fragrance of the halvah Takiyuddin had ordered to be doled out to the workers, who had toiled hard to finish on time.

Sinan was present, clad in a cinnamon kaftan and a bulbous turban, the fingers of his right hand moving around an imaginary rosary. The apprentices stood some steps behind him, trying hard to conceal their pride. For, although it was Sultan Murad's health and triumph and the Chief Royal Astronomer's success that they were here to pray for, the students of Sinan had contributed much to this observatory. They could not help but be pleased with the two buildings they had designed, constructed and made ready for use under the auspices of the master but still theirs alone. This was their creation, may the Creator forgive the word, which belonged only to Him.

Beyond the observatory grounds was an expanse of onlookers and well-wishers, their voices carrying in the wind. Foreign envoys observing the happenings, merchants calculating what this could bring to them, pilgrims murmuring prayers, beggars seeking alms, thieves searching for prey, and children perching on their fathers' shoulders to get a glimpse of the place where you could watch the sun and the moon, and even learn where the shooting stars went when they tumbled down.

Takiyuddin, tall and erect, stood at the centre, wearing a flowing garb white as alabaster. Forty sheep and forty cows had been sacrificed early on, their meat distributed to the poorest of the poor. Now a drop of their blood shone on his forehead, between his eyes. To his left and to his right twenty-four astronomers had lined up, their faces shining with delight.

Abruptly, all sound subsided. A ripple of excitement went through the audience. Sultan Murad was coming. Like water, his presence flowed into the courtyard, filling each empty s.p.a.ce, long before his cavalcade was spotted in the distance. The Shadow of G.o.d on Earth was going to open the biggest observatory in the seven climes. Once the Sultan and his guards had arrived and settled, a Sufi sheikh began to pray, his voice at once loud and mellow.

'May Allah afford His protection to our magnanimous Sultan!'

They echoed in unison, savouring the word as if it were a tasty morsel. 'Amin!'

'May Allah have mercy on our glorious empire and guide us in all our deeds and help us to join those who have been through this world before and have not erred! May Allah look after this house and reveal the secrets of the heavens to those and only those who can bear them.'

'Amin!'

As Jahan listened to the Sufi's words, his gaze strayed towards the ulema, the religious seniors, who were watching the ceremony. There had been rumours that the Shayh al-Islam, when asked to lead the communal prayer, had refused. Jahan observed the man's face. He looked composed, his expression tranquil as a pond. Just then he pursed his lips, his mouth twisting into a scowl, as if he had tasted something bitter. Jahan didn't think anyone had noticed, enraptured, as they were, by prayer. But he had seen it, that tiny gesture, and his chest tightened.

For a moment that was as brief as the ascent of a soaring condor, Jahan knew in his gut, even though there was nothing obviously out of the way, that something was wrong. He had the intense feeling that Sinan was also aware of this hence the nervous motion of his fingers. In the meantime Takiyuddin, in his exhilaration, had not suspected a thing.

Later on Jahan would contemplate this moment at length. Sinan had not had much experience with the ulema but he could nonetheless sense their profound dislike. Takiyuddin, on the other hand, knew them far better than anyone. After all, he had served as a judge, a theologian, a muwakkit, the keeper of time, and a teacher at a madrasa. Yet he did not share the unease that the master and the apprentice had felt that day. Perhaps, Jahan would conclude, with closeness came blindness and with a certain distance, awareness.

Takiyuddin was writing a treatise on heavenly beings, a book he called a zij. Therein he registered the positions and distances and motions of the sun and the moon and the stars and the celestial bodies. This would take him years, he explained, but when finished it would be a guide in perpetuity.

'A zij is a map,' he explained. 'A map of the divine creation.'

Long ago an infidel sage by the name of Aristo a man who had taught the great Askander everything he knew held that the earth was at the centre of the universe and that it was peacefully at rest, unlike other celestial bodies. He left it to astronomers to find the sum of the spheres that rotated around it, the c.u.mulative number of the many domes that moved above their heads.

'Have you been able to count them?' Jahan asked when, following the inauguration, he and Davud paid him a visit.

'Eight,' Takiyuddin said decidedly.

It was an impeccable number and for a good reason the shape of the earth, the arrangement of the heavenly bodies, the layers of the universe, everything was put in order by G.o.d for human beings to see, study and contemplate. The more Takiyuddin talked, the more garrulous he became. He said as brilliant as Aristo had been, he had got things wrong. It was the sun that was at the heart of the universe, not the earth. The other bodies revolved round this ball of fire in perfect circles. He showed Jahan a book that, he said, proved this beyond doubt. Jahan read aloud its t.i.tle, the words in Latin gliding on his tongue, smooth and round, something to do with the revolution of spheres. Koppernigk. What a strange name, he thought, yet the Chief Royal Astronomer had p.r.o.nounced it with such veneration that from his mouth it sounded like an incantation.

'He had a sweetheart but never married,' said Takiyuddin, pointing at the leather-bound tome as if it were alive. 'He raised his sister's children and had none of his own.'

Davud asked, 'Why didn't he become espoused?'

'G.o.d knows. But probably for the woman's sake. What wife can bear a husband who sees only the skies?'

Davud and Jahan eyed each other, thinking the same thing. Although Takiyuddin was married, he slept in the observatory most nights. They did not dare to ask if, when talking about Koppernigk, he had been alluding to himself as well.

Thanking the architect and his acolytes, Davud and Jahan bade them farewell. Scarcely had they stepped outside when they were engulfed by a wave of fog, penetrating and sinister. Fumbling like two blind men, they found Chota, climbed up to their places and slowly, very slowly, trotted towards the city.

A few steps into this walk Jahan felt an urge to turn back and look. Something strange happened then. Of the two tall buildings that formed the observatory, not a single thing could be seen not even a flickering candle from the windows or a glow from the instruments on the upper terrace. So fully had its contours sunk into the sea of grey that in that moment it felt like the observatory had never existed and that everything said and done under its roof had been nothing more than prints in the sand.

One gusty day, upon returning from work Jahan on Chota's neck, the master and the apprentices inside the howdah they found Takiyuddin waiting in the courtyard, a troubled look on his face. Having not visited him in a while, Jahan was astonished to see how much he had changed. The excitement that had glossed his features in the early months of the observatory had worn off, leaving an older and gaunter face beset by tension. After a brief interchange of greetings, the two elderly men retreated into the pavilion in the garden, under a canopy of vines, their voices subdued, strained.

Unable to get near, unwilling to stay away, the apprentices strode to the kitchen, where, despite the grumbling of the cook, they perched beside the window the one spot in the house where they could spy on their masters. From this distance it was not possible to hear what they were saying. Even so, nothing could hold them back from making guesses of their own.

'Something's wrong,' murmured Davud. 'I feel it in my bones.'