He screamed and dropped her. Feride scrambled to her feet and ran. After a moment’s confusion, the man’s partner raced after her. Feride threw off her charshaf and thrust it beneath his feet. He stumbled, kicking his foot to clear it of the tangled cloth. Feride hurtled between the rows of vines down the hill, the grape stocks tearing at her skirts.
In the gray dawn she saw a tangle of bodies between the vines, and the glint of metal. Elif’s thin figure rose above the rest, legs spread wide. She swung a long curved knife before her like a scythe, over and over, and Feride could hear the dull thunk of the knife as it hacked into flesh.
“Elif?” Feride called out uncertainly. She couldn’t be sure what she was seeing. Surely an apparition, a distortion of the mist and dawn.
At the sound of Feride’s voice, Elif looked up, her face invisible inside a helmet of pale hair. The hand holding the knife hung by her side. Nothing else moved.
Feride ran toward her, afraid to speak. Elif’s vacant face stared in her direction without seeing her.
Suddenly, as if she had just awakened, Elif looked down at her feet and her face took on an expression of utter horror. She began to scream, a bloodcurdling cry of anguish that spilled like black ink across the lightening fields.
40
Kamil knelt before Sultan Abdulhamid, his eyes on the intricate blue and red designs of the silk carpet beneath his knees. He remained that way until Vizier Köraslan indicated that he should rise and present his petition. They were in a reception hall adjoining the sultan’s study. Dozens of splendidly dressed guards and servants were grouped about the room, all in a state of hushed attentiveness. The sultan had received Kamil in his private quarters, rather than in the Great Mabeyn, where everyday business was conducted. Kamil had pulled every string possible to arrange an audience that morning.
The wood and stone structure of the sultan’s residence was designed to look like a Swiss chalet and seemed to Kamil, as he walked up the marble steps, too whimsical to house a man with such enormous power. Inside, the rooms were decorated in European fashion with gilded mirrors and heavy drapery. The ceilings were painted with landscapes. He had heard that Sultan Abdulhamid had crafted some of the furniture himself. Each sultan was required by tradition to learn a craft, and Sultan Abdulhamid was renowned for his furniture-making skills. He was also expanding the empire’s railroads and rebuilding its cities with European-style boulevards. All the latest English mystery books were translated as soon as they were published. An aide read them aloud from behind a screen at the insomniac sultan’s bedside. An enlightened monarch, he nevertheless jealously guarded his fears and delusions and would visit them whenever the mood took him. This, all his subjects knew, made him unpredictable and even dangerous.
The sultan sat on a wide cushioned chair inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Like Kamil and the vizier, he wore trousers, a frock coat, and a fez, but his coat was heavily brocaded in gold thread, with gold epaulets at the shoulders. A red and green grosgrain sash spanned his chest, and his white-gloved left hand loosely held the pommel of a sword. The haughty stillness of his face spoke more of power than any action or insignia. His hooded eyes gave nothing away.
Vizier Köraslan stood to the right of the throne. He was a tall, imposing man with a neat sandy beard, and his deep-set eyes roved continually around the room. He had a reputation for incorruptibility, but he was also known to be ambitious. There was no higher position in the empire to which he could aspire, but there was always more power and more wealth to be accumulated. Kamil imagined that every vizier wanted to be seen as indispensable to his ruler. Viziers were famously expendable. Some sultans had deposed them on a whim, others had put their advisers to death. Kamil didn’t envy the man his position, one foot on a very high pinnacle.
Eyes lowered, Kamil stated his name and rank, but inside he fretted. How to convince the sultan that the head of his secret police was planning to fake an assassination attempt when Kamil had no evidence, and that an attack on the Choruh Valley would be a mistake without implying that the Great Lord was mistaken? Could he do that without mentioning the socialist commune, which the sultan might take to be a different kind of threat? In other words, he thought with a feeling close to despair, he had to make convincing arguments about two life-and-death situations without actually saying anything. He decided to enter the conversation on neutral ground and feel his way along.
“As your special prosecutor,” Kamil began, “I wish to report on my progress in the Ottoman Imperial Bank robbery.”
“Isn’t that a matter you should be discussing with your superior, the minister of justice?” Vizier Köraslan interrupted impatiently. “You said this was urgent.”
“I would like to assure His Majesty that neither he nor the empire is in any danger on that front.” Kamil wished he knew that was true. He was taking an enormous risk.
“That’s not what I heard.” Sultan Abdulhamid’s voice was testy, but curious. “My sources tell me there’s a revolution afoot. What do you say to that, Kamil Pasha? It seems you are uninformed. That disappoints me.”
The last thing Kamil wanted was to disappoint the sultan. The incremental approach to delivering his message clearly wasn’t working. To convince the sultan, Kamil decided, he would have to tell him what he knew.
“I’m aware of the situation in the Choruh Valley, Your Highness. A group of young people has begun an experimental farm there, in Karakaya Village near the town of Ispir. They’re not revolutionaries.”
“How do you know that? Have you been there?”
“No, Your Majesty. I was informed through trusted sources.”
“And you believed them,” the vizier said, barely disguising his sarcasm. “We too have our sources, and they tell us otherwise.”
There was a tense silence. Kamil knew the vizier was referring to Akrep.
“How is this farm experimental?” the sultan asked. “And who are these young people?”
Kamil remembered that Sultan Abdulhamid had a particular interest in agricultural reform. “They’re socialists, Your Highness, who have traveled there from a number of different countries. As I understand it, it’s a social experiment, a community where the members share the labor and profit equally.”
“Our religion encourages us to share profit and share loss with others in our community. You needn’t be a socialist to do that.” He tapped his sword on the carpet. “Their intent is admirable, but their implementation is godless, is that not so?”
“That is so, Your Highness,” the vizier agreed. “They are godless infidels.”
Kamil kept his eyes averted from the sultan, as protocol required, but saw him reach up a bejeweled hand to grasp his chin in thought. Finally the sultan turned to his vizier and said tersely, “I want a report on these socialists. I’ve heard of them, but I want details. If they’re active in the empire, I should know about it. You told me they were Armenians.”
“I was told that they are Armenians as well as socialists.”
“Those are not the same thing. Find out what species of animal this commune is.”
“At your command, Lord of the Two Lands and the Two Seas.” Vizier Köraslan made a deep bow. “Perhaps Kamil Pasha might wish to discover the truth of the matter himself and report back to Your Highness.”
Kamil was taken aback by the suggestion that he travel all the way to the Russian border. The sultan had his own trusted men. Why send him?