The crack! of the cartilage breaking loose was lost in the sound of both men crashing to the ground.
Wrestling training at the palace school had saved Yashim’s life before. Leaving Akunin on his back instinctively cradling his broken nose, Yashim rolled with the fall and came up about six feet short of the running man. Shishkin eased back, but not fast enough. His last faltering step halved the distance between the two men: Yashim closed the gap with his lowered head.
As Shishkin doubled up, Yashim sidestepped and chopped his neck with the side of his hand. The Russian fell to his knees, coughing.
Akunin had got to his feet, but he was in no mood for fighting-one hand was clamped to his face, the other flailing drunkenly in the air.
Yashim placed a knee on Shishkin’s back and took hold of his chin in both hands.
“Why were you following me?”
Akunin began to back away.
“Stop. Tell me, and you can take your friend.”
Akunin hesitated. “The Fox,” he said thickly. “He thinks Fevzi Pasha is back-and he wants to talk to you.”
“Fevzi Pasha back?”
Akunin tilted his head. The blood was black under his hand. “I saw him, at the Polish residency.”
Shishkin groaned. Yashim said: “Go on.”
“He went in, about an hour before you came. Galytsin guessed you were meeting him there. He told us to pick you up.”
Yashim released his hold on Shishkin, who sputtered and sank to his hands and knees. “Where’s Galytsin now?”
“At the embassy, efendi.”
“Tell him I’ll meet him there for breakfast.”
131
Ten minutes later, Yashim heard a low whistle from the yard. He put his face to the bars.
“Yashim!”
He recognized the voice, even in a whisper. He thrust a hand through the bars and gripped a well-known hand.
“Incredible!” Palewski’s excited whisper cut through the night like steam escaping from an engine. “We’ll have to rethink the whole story!”
“Yes. It’s not Talfa-”
“Talfa?” Palewski dropped his hand. “I’m talking about the Genoese settlement, Yashim, prior to the Conquest. Those tunnels? Greater continuity than anyone realizes. Gibbon, von Hammer…” His whisper trailed off. After a moment he said: “If this gate is locked, how the devil do we get out?”
It took almost half an hour with ropes, and muffled curses, to bring Palewski and Marta over the wall.
She descended with solemn grace, holding her skirts tight.
“It would be better for you not to go back to the residency just yet,” Yashim explained as they made their way up the open lanes toward Galata Hill.
Twenty minutes later, when everyone had told their story, Preen looked at Yashim.
“You’ve been very quiet, my dear.” She turned to the others. “Yashim is thinking up a plan to capture Fevzi Pasha,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Bring the bastard to justice.”
Yashim shook his head. “I thought that. But no. My plan is-to send him to Egypt, with his daughter.”
Preen stiffened. “You’d do that for him-after everything?”
He caught her look: it chilled him.
“You said-you promised me-you’d seen through him, Yashim. And now-you work for him, like that!” She snapped her fingers.
“Do you remember, Preen, when I said there is always a gap, however tightly we try to fit the pieces together?”
“For mercy,” Preen sneered. “For a man who would give none!”
“It’s not for him. Not exactly.”
“Who, then?” Palewski said.
Marta smiled shyly. “He means his daughter, of course.”
Yashim cast her a grateful look. “I can’t play God, Preen. If we don’t move now, I’m afraid the little girl will die.”
Preen tossed her head. “She’s in the harem, you said. Safe-and secret. The safest place in Istanbul.”
Yashim slowly shook his head. “It’s secret-but it isn’t safe. Not safe, at all.”
“What do you propose, Yashim?” Palewski yawned. The night had been long.
“I propose, my friend, that you get some sleep. As for you, Kadri, I want you to find a caiquejee called Spyro, and bring him here.”
132
Yashim found Galytsin at a table laden with patisseries.
“Join me,” the prince suggested, pouring Yashim a cup of tea.
Yashim sat down opposite him, and ripped a croissant between his fingers. He had been tired, but now he was only hungry. “You were closing in on Fevzi Ahmet Pasha, weren’t you? Threatening him?”
“Is that what he told you?” Galytsin shrugged. “Threatening him with what?”
A question for a question. Yashim took a side step: “Three years ago you burned his yali — as a warning.”
“I have good reason to remember that.” Galytsin smiled, showing a row of perfect teeth. “Try the jam, Yashim efendi. But no, believe it or not, that was his concubine.”
The tea burned Yashim’s tongue. Galytsin pushed the jam toward him. “It seems to me, Yashim efendi, that you know very little about the pasha.”
Yashim tried the jam. Galytsin leaned back and stuck his foot up on the next chair.
“Pervyal.” He twisted his hand in the air and a liveried footman stepped forward with a box. “Fevzi Ahmet bought a concubine on the Black Sea coast,” the prince remarked, selecting a cigar. “Smoke?”
Yashim shook his head.
“Pervyal,” Galytsin repeated, putting the cigar into his mouth. “She was beautiful, and clever, too, in the Circassian way.” The footman presented a match to the end of his cigar, but the prince ignored him. “More beautiful than his wife, naturally. In Istanbul, she would have fetched thousands-and the imperial harem would have taken her.”
Yashim put a smear of jam onto his croissant. “So how did he buy her?”
“A very good question, which Fevzi didn’t think to ask.”
The footman struck another match, and this time Galytsin presented the tip of his cigar to the flame. He drew on it, turning it fussily this way and that, until the flame was almost touching the man’s fingers.
“I imagine Fevzi Ahmet thought the dealer was doing him a favor. He brought her back, and installed her in his harem-he told her he would marry her when she produced a son. His wife had given birth to a daughter. Pervyal was very helpful. A very good second mother to the child.”
“So-?”
“Pervyal got pregnant. It was a boy. He was dead when she gave birth.”
“And Fevzi Ahmet-”
“Didn’t marry her, no. He wanted a live boy. But Fevzi Ahmet told her next time, it would be all right.” He blew a ring of smoke into the air. “She miscarried. She became-difficult. She spent a lot of time with the little girl, but the wife didn’t trust her.”
“I can understand.”
“Fevzi Ahmet became Kapudan pasha. Mahmut told him to build the bridge.” Galytsin dropped his hand toward his cup, and the footman reached forward with the teapot. “He was less often at home. Two women, a child, a eunuch attendant-you might say it was a combustible situation. And Pervyal had a flaw.”
“A flaw?”
Galytsin leaned forward with a look of amusement. “That’s what the dealer had recognized. I don’t know if you are a superstitious man, Yashim efendi, but some people would say Pervyal was a witch.”
Yashim shook his head. “I don’t understand-you talk about this woman as if you knew her.”
“Oh, yes.” He examined his cigar. “I am-or rather, I was-her employer. Her dealer, I should say. It was me who sold her, Yashim efendi.”
Yashim reached for his cup and drained it. “You sold her to Fevzi Ahmet?”
Galytsin chuckled. “I was rather better than that. I sold her to the sultan.”
Yashim stared.
“It’s good to see your face, Yashim efendi! I knew nothing about Pervyal myself, until she set fire to the yali. We had warships in the Bosphorus then, and she came to us. A very good-looking young woman, with subtle accomplishments. Not a virgin-but there are, apparently, ways of remedying that. We used them.” He waved a hand. “We restored her purity, and arranged her sale-at a distance, of course. Quite a coup, wouldn’t you think? But we overlooked one thing.”