“What are you talking about? Yashim?”
Yashim bowed, and started to explain. He spoke of the Edict, and the murder of the cadets. He described a prophecy uttered centuries ago by the founder of the Karagozi order of dervishes—and caught the sultan’s warning frown.
“Be careful, lala. Be very careful of the words you choose. There are some things one cannot speak about.”
Yashim eyed him levelly. “Then I don’t think it will be necessary, sultan.”
There was a silence.
“No,” Mahmut replied. “I have understood. Both of you, approach the throne. We don’t want to shout.”
Yashim hesitated. The sultan’s words had reminded him of the last lines in the verse: The silent few become one with the Core. Approach. What could it mean? He took a step closer to the sultan. The seraskier stood stiffly beside him.
“What do you say, seraskier?”
“There may be upwards of fifty thousand men preparing to take to the streets.”
“And Istanbul could be burned to the ground, is that it? I see. Well, we must do something about that. What do you have in mind?”
“I believe, sire, you must let the New Guards occupy the city temporarily,” Yashim explained. “The seraskier is reluctant, but I can’t see a better way of guaranteeing public safety.”
The sultan frowned and tugged his beard. “Seraskier, you know the temper of your men. Are they ready to take such a step?”
“Their discipline is good, sultan. And they have several commanders who are level-headed and decisive. With your permission, they could take up positions overnight. Their presence alone might overawe the conspirators.”
Yashim noticed that the seraskier soundend less hesitant now.
“All the same,” the sultan observed, “it could become a battle, in the streets.”
“There is that risk. In those circumstances we would simply have to do our best. Identify the ringleaders, limit the damage. Above all, sultan, protect the palace.”
“Hmm. As it happens, seraskier, I hadn’t been planning to remain in the city.”
“With respect, sultan. Your safety can be guaranteed, and I think that your presence will help to reassure the people.”
The sultan answered with a sigh.
“I am not afraid, seraskier.” He rubbed his hands across his face. “Get the men ready. I will consult with my viziers. You can expect an order within the next few hours.”
He turned to Yashim.
“As for you, it is high time you made progress in our enquiry. Be so good as to report to my apartments.”
He dismissed them with a gesture. Both men bowed deeply and walked backward to the door. As they closed on the audience room, Yashim saw that the sultan was sitting on his throne, his fist bunched against his cheek, watching them.
[ 110 ]
Outside the door the seraskier stopped to mop his forehead with a handkerchief.
“Our enquiry? You should have told me that you were working on a case in here,” he muttered reproachfully.
“You didn’t ask. Anyway, as you heard, I gave yours priority.”
The seraskier grunted. “May I ask what the enquiry concerns?”
The seraskier was too brusque. On the parade ground it would do, perhaps: soldiers promised their unwavering obedience. But Yashim wasn’t a soldier.
“It wouldn’t interest you,” Yashim said.
The seraskier’s lips drew tight.
“Perhaps not.” He stared Yashim in the face. “I suggest, then, you do as the sultan said. As I will.”
Yashim watched the seraskier stepping briskly towards the Ortakapi, the central gate leading to the first court. It wasn’t a position he’d enjoy to be in himself. On the other hand, if the seraskier handled it well, both he and the Guard would emerge with honour. It was an opportunity to restore the reputation of the Guards, somewhat tarnished by their failures on the battlefield.
And a duty, too. Not just to the sultan, but to the people of Istanbul. Without the Guards, the whole city was in danger from the Janissary rebels.
There was no doubt in Yashim’s mind that the fourth murder had completed a stage, established the preliminaries. The old altars had been re-consecrated, in blood. The second stage was underway, Yashim felt sure of that.
Wake them. Approach.
What did it mean?
Within the next seventy-two hours, he sensed, they would all find out.
He saw the seraskier disappear into the shadow of the Ortakapi. Then he turned and headed for the harem apartments.
[ 111 ]
Hello, stranger!”
It was almost a whisper. Ibou the librarian doubled up his long arm and waggled the fingers in greeting.
Yashim grinned and raised a hand.
“Off to work?” he asked in a low tone. By long-established custom, no one ever raised their voice in the second court of the palace.
Ibou cocked his head.
“I’ve just finished, actually. I was going to get something to eat.”
Yashim thought he sensed an invitation.
“Well, I wish I could come with you,” he said. And then: “You’ve come out of the wrong door.”
Ibou gave him a solemn look, then turned his head.
“It looks all right to me.”
“No, I mean from the Archives. I…I didn’t know you could get through on this side.” Yashim felt himself blushing. “It doesn’t matter. Thanks for your help the other night.”
“I only wish I could have done more, effendi,” Ibou replied. “You can come and see me again, if you like. I’m on nights for the rest of this week.”
He salaamed, and Yashim salaamed back.
Yashim went into the harem by the Gate of the Aviary. He could never pass this gate without thinking of the valide, Kosem, who two centuries before was dragged here from the apartments naked by the heels, and strangled in the corridor. That had been the finale to fifty terrifying years, in which the empire was ruled by a succession of madmen, drunkards and debauchees—including Kosem’s own son Ibrahim, who had his rooms papered and carpeted in Russian furs, and rode his girls like mares…until the executioner came for him with the bowstring.
Dangerous territory, the harem.
He stepped into the guard room. Six halberdiers were on duty, standing in pairs beside the doors which led to the Court of the Valide Sultan and the Golden Road, a tiny, open alleyway which linked the harem to the selamlik. The halberdiers were unarmed, except for the short daggers they wore stuffed into the sash of their baggy trousers; they only carried halberds on protective duty, as when on rare occasions they escorted the sultan’s women out of the palace. In the meantime they had a single distinguishing characteristic: the long black tresses which hung from the crown of their high hats as a token that they had been passed for entry into the harem. Yashim remembered a Frenchman laughing when the function of the hair was explained to him.
“You think a mane of hair will stop a man from seeing the sultan’s women? In France,” he had said, “it is the women who have long hair. Is it so, that they cannot steal glances at a handsome man?”
And Yashim had replied, rather stiffly, that the halberdiers of the tresses only went into the more public areas of the harem, to bring in the wood.
He laid his fist against his chest and bowed slightly.
“By the sultan’s order,” he murmured.
The halberdiers recognised him, and stood to let him pass.
He found himself beneath the colonnade which ran along the western edge of the valide’s court. It had been raining, and the flagstones of the court were gleaming and puddled, the walls greenish with damp. The door to the Valide Sultan’s suite was open, but Yashim stood where he was, turning the situation over in his mind.
What was it, he asked himself, that created danger in the harem?