As he half-walked, half-jogged through the streets and alleys, he was surprised to meet no soldiers on the way, none of the little platoons the seraskier had forecast at every street corner. How soon would they secure the city?
He had an answer of a kind as he swept out of the maze of streets behind Aya Sofia and onto the open ground that lay between the mosque and the walls of the seraglio. A pair of uniformed guardsmen ran towards him, shouting: behind them he could see that the whole space was occupied by soldiers, some on horseback, several platoons in what looked like a drill formation, and others simply sitting quietly on the ground with their legs crossed, waiting for instructions. Beyond them he thought he could make out the silhouettes of mounted cannon and mortars.
This has the makings of a complete disaster, he thought fiercely—an opinion confirmed on the spot, as the two soldiers ran up to block his way.
“The way is closed! You must go back!”
They were holding their guns across their chests.
“I have urgent business at the palace,” Yashim snapped. “Let me through.”
“Sorry, mate. These are our orders. No one is to come through here.”
“The seraskier. Where is he?”
The nearest soldier looked uneasy.
“Couldn’t say. He’ll be busy anyways.”
The second soldier frowned.
“Who are you?”
Yashim saw his chance. He jabbed a finger.
“No. Who are you} I want your rank, and your number.” He didn’t know much about military organisation, but he hoped he sounded better than he felt. “The seraskier is going to be very unhappy if he gets to hear about this.”
The soldiers glanced at one another.
“Well, I don’t know,” one of them muttered.
“You know who I am,” Yashim asserted. He doubted that, very much, but there was an angry edge to his voice which wasn’t faked. “Yashim Togalu. The seraskier’s senior intelligence officer. My mission is urgent.”
The men shuffled their feet.
“Either you take me to the Imperial Gate right now, or I will speak to your commanding officer.”
One of the soldiers glanced round. The Imperial Gate loomed black and solid in the darkness only a hundred yards away. The corps commander—he might be anywhere.
“Go on, then,” said the soldier quickly, with a jerk of his head. Yashim walked past them.
After he’d gone, one of the men let out a sigh of relief. “At least we didn’t give our names,” he remarked.
[ 118 ]
Yashim felt the hairs prickling on the back of his neck as he picked his way among the soldiers waiting patiently on the ground. At any minute he expected to be challenged again, delayed again. A shout was all it would take.
There it came. One shout, and another. He saw the men around him turn their heads.
But they weren’t looking at him. Another shout: “Fire!”
Yashim swivelled, following the men’s gaze. Over their heads, beyond the silhouette of the great mosque, the sky had lightened like an early dawn. A dawn rising in the west. A dawn rising upwind of the city of Istanbul. As he watched, he saw the light go yellow and flicker.
For a few seconds he stood transfixed.
Around him the men strained uneasily, taking up their rifles, awaiting the order to rise.
Yashim broke into a run.
[ 119 ]
The flap in the lattice dropped open with a click as Preen and Mina reached the corridor at the foot of the stairs, but they sailed past it without a word, noses in the air. On the street they nudged each other and giggled.
For ten minutes they walked eastwards, looking for a chair to carry Preen, at least. Preen seemed to have recovered her poise on leaving the house, leaning only slightly on Mina’s arm, looking hungrily around as if she had been in bed for a month instead of a couple of days. A few men threw them curious glances, but finally she could bear it no longer.
“Where are the handsome soldiers, then?” she demanded.
Mina snorted.
“And I thought you wanted to come out to get reassurance from your friend! Really, Preen!” Then she looked round and shrugged. “There were dozens of ‘em earlier, honest. I can’t say I’m not a bit disappointed myself. Oh, where are all the chairmen?”
“That’s all right,” said Preen, smiling and patting her friend’s arm. “I’m getting on all right now.”
There was a buzz of excitement in the street behind them, like a sudden cooing of pigeons, Preen thought. She turned her head to see a man running up the alley, pumping his arms and flinging out his chest: he wore a beard and a high red cap with a white pennant flying from its crown. In each fist he carried a flaming torch.
“Fire! Fire!” He bellowed suddenly. He swerved to the walclass="underline" there was a sound of breaking glass and the man lunged, reappeared and sped across the alley.
“Fire!”
He was only holding one brand now, but there was a bottle in his other hand and he was sloshing gobbets of liquid from it over a doorway. “Fire!”
“What are you doing?” Preen screamed, breaking away from Mina who had clapped a hand to her mouth.
She put out her hands without thinking and felt the bruise ripen in her shoulder.
The man touched the brand to the door: as Preen reached him it sprouted a lovely mass of blueish flames and the man wheeled round, grinning wildly.
“Fire!” he roared.
Preen slapped him hard across the face with her good hand. The man jerked his head back. For a moment he narrowed his eyes and then he dodged down and sped past her, up the street, before she could think what to do next.
Preen threw an alarmed look at the doorway: the blue flames suddenly started to spit. Some were turning yellow as they licked upwards, snapping at the old wood.
“Mina!”
Mina hadn’t moved, but she was looking from Preen to the other side of the street where a shattered window was leaping in and out of view as the flames guttered and shrank inside.
“Let’s go back!” Mina wailed.
Preen acted on impulse. People were already running in the street, in both directions. A few had stopped and were making an effort to smother the flames creeping round the doorway. But even as they beat the fire with their cloaks flames had started to shoot from the window opposite.
“No! Go on, to Yashim’s!” she shouted. She glanced back: a light seemed to hover at the corner of the alley, and then a wall of turbanned men with flickering torches surged around the corner, blocking the alley. “Run!”
The pain in her shoulder seemed to fade away as she began to run uphill. After a moment she put out a hand and rested it on Mina’s shoulder. Both dancers stopped and kicked off their shoes, those two-inch pattens on which they liked to totter into male company; and both, as women will, snatched them up and carried them as they ran barefoot through the alleyways towards the Kara Davut.
They didn’t get so far. As they turned into the alley which led to the open space beneath the Imperial Gate, they flung themselves into a packed crowd of men, jostling and elbowing against each other. Almost immediately they were hemmed in by other people running up behind them: Preen grabbed Mina by the arm and spun her round. Together they fought their way back to the street corner, and took the turn to the right.
“We’ll go round behind the mosque,” Preen whispered in Mina’s ear.
They slackened their pace, partly to avoid the people running up the alleyway towards them, partly because among so many people Preen felt unwilling to surrender herself to the panic that was already developing around them.