Nowhere in the city was quieter than the Grand Bazaar, a labyrinth of covered streets which twisted and writhed like eels all the way down the hill from Beyazit to the shores of the Golden Horn. By day, the hum of the bazaar belonged to what was, even then, perhaps the most fantastic caravanserai in the world, an emporium of gold and spices, of rugs and linens, soaps and books and medicines and earthenware bowls. But it wasn’t just the place where the produce of the world was traded; within that square mile of alleyways and cubicles, some of the most delicate and useful products of the empire were manufactured daily. It was a concentration of the empire’s wealth and industry; it was served by its own cafes, restaurants, imams and hamams; and the strictest rules were laid down for its security.
The heights which commanded the bazaar—the so-called Third Hill of Istanbul—on which the Beyazit Mosque stood, had been chosen by the Conqueror, Sultan Mehmed, for his imperial palace; but the building was still incomplete when he began work on another palace, Topkapi on Seraglio Point, destined to be far greater and more magnificent than the first. The old palace, or Eski Serai, later served as a sort of annexe to Topkapi. It was a school where palace slaves were trained; a company of Janissaries were stationed in its walls; but its only royal inhabitants were women of previous sultans, despatched from Topkapi on the death of their lord and master to gloomy retirement in Eski Serai.
That dismal practice had lapsed many years before. Eventually, the Eski Serai sank into disrepair, and finally into ruin; its remains were cleared and from the rubble rose the fire-tower which still brooded watchfully over the Grand Bazaar.
The bag, which arrived in the night, was tied by its drawstrings to a heavy iron grille which protected the Grand Bazaar from prying eyes and enterprising thieves. By dawn more than a dozen people had commented on it, and within the hour, in front of a very squeezed-up crowd, it was finally brought to the ground.
No one was eager to be the one who opened it. Nobody thought it contained treasure. Everyone thought that whatever it contained, it would be horrible; and everyone wanted to know what it was.
In the end, it was decided to carry the bag, unopened, to the mosque, and ask the kadi for an opinion.
[ 32 ]
Several hours later the bag was opened for the second time that morning.
“It is a terrible thing,” the kadi said again, wringing his hands. He was an old man, and the shock had been great. “Nothing like this…ever…” His hands fluttered in the air. “It has nothing to do with us. Peaceful people…good neighbours…”
The seraskier nodded, but he was not listening. He was watching Yashim drag at the cords. Yashim stood up, and tipped the bag over onto the floor.
The kadi gripped a doorway for support. The seraskier skipped to one side. Yashim himself stood breathing heavily, staring at the pile of white bones and wooden spoons. Wedged in the pile, unmistakably dark, was a human head.
Yashim hung his head and said nothing. The violence is terrible, he thought. And what have I done to stop it? Cooked a meal. Gone looking for a toy cauldron.
Cooked a meal.
The seraskier put out a booted foot and stirred the heap with his toe. The head settled in its grisly nest. Its skin looked drawn and yellow, and its eyes glittered faintly beneath half-lowered lids. Neither of them noticed the kadi leave the room.
“No blood,” said the seraskier.
Yashim squatted down beside the bones and spoons.
“But one of yours?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“You think so?”
“No, I’m sure. The moustache.” He gestured faintly to the severed head.
But Yashim was more interested in the bones. He was laying them out, bone by bone, paying particular attention to the shin, the femur, the ribs.
“It’s very odd,” he murmured.
The seraskier looked down. “What’s odd?”
“There’s not a mark on them. Clean and whole.”
He picked up the pelvis and began turning it this way and that between his hands. The seraskier pulled a face. He’d dealt with corpses often enough—but fondling bones. Euch.
“It was a man, anyway,” Yashim remarked.
“Of course it was a fucking man. He was one of my soldiers.”
“It was just a thought,” Yashim replied pacifically, setting the pelvis in position. From overhead it looked almost obscenely large, thrusting out from the skeletal remains spread on the marble floor. “Maybe they’d used another body. I wouldn’t know.”
“Another body? What for?”
Yashim stood up and wiped his hands with the hem of his cloak. He stared at the seraskier, seeing nothing.
“I can’t imagine,” he said.
The seraskier gestured to the door, and heaved a sigh.
“Like it or not,” he said, “we’re going to have to tell the people something.”
Yashim blinked.
“How about the truth?” He suggested.
The seraskier looked at him levelly.
“Something like that,” he said abruptly. “Why not?”
[ 33 ]
Fine cities whose contented citizens support an intelligent administration do exist, containing not a single dilapidated public building, a solitary weed-strewn building lot, or even a crumbling palazzo; but a great city must have them all, for decay, too, is a sign of life. In the right ear, dereliction whispers of opportunity. In another ear, of delinquency and corruption. Istanbul in the 18305 was no exception.
The ragged bell-pull that now lay, inert, in Yashim’s hand as he stood at the top of the steps by the front door of a building in Pera, Istanbul’s so-called ‘European’ quarter across the Golden Horn, inspired a similar reflection. He sensed that in some way the broken bell claimed kinship with much that was already ragged and mouldering in the ancient metropolis, from cracked basilicas to sagging wooden houses, from the office of the Patriarch to waterlogged pilings in the port.
At the last, mortal wrench of the cord, a bell had pealed somewhere inside the old mansion. For the first time in weeks, and the last time in years, a bell announced to the Polish ambassador that he had a visitor.
Palewski manoeuvred himself off the divan with an oath and a tinkle of broken glass.
At the head of the stairs he gripped the balustrade and began to descend, quite slowly, towards the front door. He stared for a moment or two at the bolts, then stretched, flexed the muscles in his back, ran a hand across his hair and around his collar, and wrenched it open. He blinked involuntarily in the sudden rush of winter light.
Yashim shoved the remains of the bell pull into his hands and stepped inside. Palewski closed the door, grumbling.
“Why don’t you just come in through the windows at the back?”
“I didn’t want to surprise you.”
Palewski turned his back and began to mount the stairs.
“Nothing surprises me,” he said.
Yashim glimpsed a dark corridor, which led to the back of the Residency, and a sheet covering some furniture stacked in the hall. He followed Palewski up the stairs.
Palewski opened a door.
“Ah,” he said.
Yashim followed his friend into a small, low-ceilinged room, lit by two long windows. Against the opposite wall stood an elaborate chimney piece, decorated with sheaves of carved shields and the bows and arrows of a more chivalric age; in the grate a fire glowed dully. Palewski threw on another log and kicked the fire; a few sparks shot up. The flames began to spread.
Palewski threw himself into a massive armchair and motioned to Yashim to do the same.