The Snake Stone (29 page)

Palewski pulled a face. “A society of doctors?”

“Millingen was at Missilonghi for the cause, wasn’t he? We know Stephanitzes was, and he was the only Greek among them. Bruno worked for Byron: he followed the poet. Meyer edited the
Chronica Hellenica
. Perhaps he believed in the Great Idea, or perhaps he simply hoped for reward when the kingdom established itself.”

“That fits,” Palewski said. “Damn it, Yashim. English doctors don’t go around murdering people like that.”

“I couldn’t say,” Yashim remarked. “But Lefèvre also visited another man before he was killed. Mavrogordato.”

“That’s it!” Palewski slapped his thigh. “The Greek banker, ship-owner, whatever. He knew where to find Lefèvre that night—you’d booked him a passage on one of his ships. These bankers are doing quite all right, don’t want to rock the boat. Lefèvre comes in, babbling about the relics, and Mavrogordato panics. He uses his wealth and influence to have the whole thing discreetly taken care of.”

Yashim sighed. “I wouldn’t call any of those murders discreet. If Mavrogordato wanted Lefèvre killed, why did his wife call me in to dig around? Mavrogordato doesn’t sneeze without his wife’s permission. He wouldn’t organize a string of murders on his own. She might. But then she wouldn’t have called me in.”

“Confound it, Yash. Why in the name of God
did
she call you in?”

“Exactly. Why was she so interested in Lefèvre?” Yashim put his fingertips together. “Something about him confused her.”

“Confused her?”

“I don’t think that Lefèvre came babbling to her husband about relics. Mavrogordato could have told her if he had. There was something about Lefèvre that she wanted to know—something Mavrogordato couldn’t tell her. Not because he wouldn’t—he’d tell her everything he knew. No secrets.”

“Out with it, Yashim.”

Yashim smiled. “I don’t have the answer, my friend. At least, not yet.”

“But you have an idea?”

Yashim nodded thoughtfully. “Yes. Yes, I do have an idea.”

Compston gave a huge snort and rolled sideways off his chair, onto the floor.

He sat up blearily, rubbing his head.

“I—I wasn’t asleep,” he mumbled automatically.

T
HE
valide leans forward. Some things, she says to herself, do not change: they must not. I did not believe it, when I was young. I fought the old women: I scandalized them. But I see it clearly now: this is my role.

She watches for a deviation. She can remember her last visit; she compares it with this.

Now he drinks the pure water from the cup, and now he dips his bread in a plate of salt, to show his brotherhood.

The watermen cross their arms flat against their chests.

They bow to the new recruit. There are spots of color on his cheeks.

The sou naziry, the chief of the watermen’s guild, raises his hands. “Water is life.”

“Water is life,” the new recruit answers in a firm voice.

“It is the blessing of the spirit.”

“And the spirit is with God,” he answers.

“Be He blessed, the Merciful, the Creator.”

“And may His blessings fall upon us, as the rain.”

The sou naziry steps forward and places his hands on the other man’s shoulders. He kisses him three times.

The valide almost smiles: it reminds her of gentlemen on Martinique.

She glances around, to share her smile with Yashim.

But Yashim isn’t there.

T
HE
valide frowned. Minutes had gone by. Prayers concluded, the watermen were beginning to file out into the courtyard through the great doors, under the watchful eye of the sou naziry. In a few moments he would come and present his salaams to the purdah screen. It was really too much! Where was Yashim?

She looked around, just in time to see him emerge from a tiny doorway between two of the great pilasters of the old church. The screen, she observed with relief, concealed him from the watermen. He was brushing his knees, which were covered in old lime, and the hem of his cloak seemed to be wet.

He gave her the blandest of smiles and bowed.

The valide frowned. “Where have you been,
scélérat
!” she hissed.

Yashim put out his hands. “I saw a door, I went through…I have never been here before.”

The shadow of the sou naziry fell across the screen.

“Valide! Your fragrant presence here this day brings much honor upon us. It shall be known that the company of the sou yolci was not forgotten, by your grace.”

The valide’s face softened at a stroke. “You are most kind, naziry. I do not forget that of all the treasures of Istanbul, that which you guard is the most precious to the people.”

“Valide, you speak the truth. Is it not written that of all living things water is the vital principle?”

“It is written,” the valide replied. Yashim repressed a smile: he doubted, in his heart, whether the valide really knew. “I have a servant, naziry.”

“Yes, Valide?” The sou naziry sounded faintly puzzled.

“Yashim, he is called. A
lala
. He is an honest man, and desires to talk with you.” She waved Yashim forward, and her bangles clinked.

Yashim stepped out from behind the screen and bowed. The naziry gave a curt nod and then raised his hands.

“You will forgive me, Valide. I have no time for the
lala
now,” he said. “For two days, I must inspect the bents. On my return…”

He bowed before the screen. The valide made no sound.

Y
ASHIM
placed the vegetables in his basket and took the money from his purse.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah—and no offense, efendi! But this coin’s light—look, five piastres more, and there’s the deal.” The brother hopped from foot to foot, one hand outstretched, glancing up and down the road. “I’m coming, hanum! Five piastres, efendi.”

Yashim felt a surge of irritation as he counted out the tiny coins.

When he got back to the apartment he was not surprised to find Amélie on the divan, reading a book.

“I hoped you’d come back,” she said.

“You prepared the stove.”

“If you needed it…”

“Yes. I’ll make pilaf,” he said. “Don’t move. Just read your book.”

He stripped two onions from their hulls, chopped them fine, and dropped them with a handful of pine nuts into a pan of olive oil, which he set on the coals. He crushed two cloves of garlic and brushed off their skins with the knife, then chopped them roughly and added them to the onion with the flat of the blade. He drizzled two handfuls of rice from the crock into the pan and stirred it when the rice began to stick. After a few minutes the rice was becoming clear, so he pulled the pan from the coals and looked into the stockpot, which was starting to steam. He let it rise to the boil.

Amélie had been watching him.

“Max never liked to cook,” she said. “He didn’t have a sense of taste. Perhaps, you know, that’s why he never liked to kiss.”

Yashim put the rice back on the heat and ladled out some stock.

“It certainly explains something,” he muttered. When she asked what he meant, he told her about the dolma he’d given her husband.

Amélie laughed. “You chose the wrong Frenchman.”

The rice was drying out. Yashim put a few more ladlefuls of stock into the pan and stirred it in.

“I think he was a Swiss,” he said carefully.

Amélie was silent for a while. Yashim added salt, pepper, and a pinch of cinnamon to the rice, and covered it with a domed lid. “Did he tell you about his time in Greece?” he asked.

“Oh yes. He saw the Parthenon, and Epidaurus in the Peloponnese. He said there was so much more waiting to be unearthed—and thank God Napoleon had invaded Egypt, not Greece!”

“But he had a war there, all the same,” Yashim said. “If he went in the twenties.”

“He never told me much about that,” Amélie said.

“What about Byron? Did he mention Missilonghi?”

“Was that where Byron died? No. Max never said anything about that.”

“So he never said anything about Dr. Millingen—or Dr. Meyer?” Yashim trimmed the stems of four baby artichokes and set them to steam over the stock. He glanced around.

Amélie was holding her head in her hand, as if deep in thought.

“Millingen?” She looked up quickly, in time for Yashim to notice a pink flush fading from her cheeks. “The sultan’s physician?”

Yashim stood with the knife in one hand, the disk of the choke in the other.

“I—” She gave a little laugh. “I met him, just yesterday. Isn’t that a coincidence?”

“Extraordinary,” Yashim agreed mildly, turning to the chopping block again.

“I didn’t want to tell you—I thought you’d be angry with me.”

Yashim began to slice the choke carefully.

“I was stuck here with nothing to do, so I decided to go and have a look at Aya Sofia. I’m afraid I got a little carried away, and I forgot that Christians are not welcome in a mosque.”

“That depends on the mosque,” Yashim said. “But Aya Sofia—no. An unbeliever—and a woman alone. At least—you were alone?”

“It was thoughtless of me. I’m sorry. I hope I haven’t offended you.”

Yashim looked down at the chopping board. “No,” he said. “What happened?”

“They chased me out. It was frightening—I wasn’t sure what they would do to me. Then a carriage pulled up and I tumbled in.”

“I see. And Dr. Millingen?”

“It was his carriage. He brought me back here.”

Yashim pursed his lips gently, sunk in thought.

“You came straight on here, from Aya Sofia?”

“Yes. He was perfectly gentlemanly, very stiff and English. He was in a hurry. I thought you would be angry—and then you weren’t here. And when you did come back, you were half dead, and, well, you know the rest. I forgot the whole thing until now.”

Yashim picked up the board and swept the slices of artichoke into the pan with his fingers. He had a prickling sensation in the back of his head.

He stirred the rice slowly.

Something here, he knew, was wrong—and it wasn’t his pilaf. There was something about Amélie that was odd as well, beyond her hesitation or her blushes.

She was wearing a pair of little pointed slippers.

P
ALEWSKI
reached out from under the bedclothes to take the tea. “Thank you, Marta.”

“Wrong,” Yashim said, settling himself at the foot of the bed. Palewski opened his eyes.

“Good God, it’s you! Really, Yashim, you may as well have a bed here until the wretched Lefèvre woman’s gone.”

“Too late.” Yashim pulled a folded paper from his cloak. “I found this note under my door this morning.”

Palewski opened it.

“A very proper expression of sentiment, Yashim,” Palewski said warmly. “‘Blows that strike to the depths of a woman’s soul.’ Dear me. You’re probably sorry she’s gone. I think I am.”

Yashim wrung his hands. His lips still burned where she had kissed him.

“The embassy was my first suggestion. I must have made her feel unwelcome. She was my guest.”

Palewski looked at him intently. “My dear fellow, this won’t do. Is Marta awake?”

“She made the tea.”

“I was afraid it might be too early.” He flung back the coverlet and went to the door.

“Marta!”

Yashim heard Marta hurrying up the stairs.

“Marta, my dear. Our friend Yashim is feeling a little out of sorts and wants a capital breakfast to set him up. Coffee, eggs, bread. Can we manage? There’s a blueberry jam that’s just arrived from the village, we’ll have some of that. Cheese, olives. What else? Perhaps some of the—ah—diplomatic sausage, too. Lay it out in the salon, will you? Looks like a lovely day, we can eat at the window. Bit of fruit? Thank you, Marta, you’re splendid.”

He turned to his friend and rubbed his hands vigorously. “No more misery, Yashim. The girl’s gone—Lefèvre’s girl, I mean—and she’s done the best thing. Can’t have her moping around in a foreign city with no one to talk to but you. France, that’s the place for her. Just let me pull on a few things, and I’ll be down in a moment.”

Yashim was having coffee in the sitting room when Palewski rejoined him.

“She doesn’t know that her husband was Meyer,” Yashim said. “But yesterday she met Millingen.”

He told Palewski what Amélie had said.

“And she was holding something back?” Palewski frowned. “I don’t get it, Yash.”

Yashim sighed. “Neither do I,” he admitted.