The Sultan's Eyes (21 page)

I studied him closely when nobody was looking. The boy was still there, surely, in the sudden smile and the impatient way he pushed his hair from his face. But the dark eyes were serious now, where before they had seemed to sparkle, and I realised it was an age since I’d heard the wild laugh that had once echoed around our supper table.

It astonished me to think that of all the people I had known, in my life in England or since, this young man had known me the longest. He was the only person, now, with whom I could talk about my father and our life in Cambridge. Yet I didn’t. I couldn’t. And once I knew about the scars he bore, I felt fairly sure that he wouldn’t wish it.

I kept my counsel, as Admiral Jonson had requested, and I never mentioned the colleges and the lawns and the river and the supper fire. Not for a long time.

Willem was right about my anger at Justinian, and at him. I knew that now, and realised, too, how wearying it must have been.

Justinian was at our new print workshop a great deal, since Al-Qasim had asked him to help proofread the scientific chapters of
The Sum of All Knowledge
. His geometry was much better than mine, and we spent many hours working side by side on corrections and additions to the text, just as I had once done with my father, and with Master de Aquila. I had never bothered to enquire about Justinian’s fields of study back in Cambridge, but it slowly emerged he had not only read Classics, rhetoric and logic with Father, but was also an expert in the scientific methods of Francis Bacon.

‘Another scholar,’ said Willem. ‘Just like you, Isabella.’

‘Far from it,’ I said. ‘Master Jonson had the advantage of attending university, whereas I was a mere secretary.’

Justinian let out a laugh. ‘One of these days, you must forgive me.’

‘It’s possible,’ I said.

‘But not likely?’

I pretended to focus on the papers on the table before me, remembering how the other Cambridge boys had looked up to him, had spoken of his dazzling future — now to be wasted on the fringes of the known world, copying out trade agreements in some dusty office. Perhaps it had been shattered forever in the torture chambers of the Tower, or in a dank prison cell. His face no longer had that hollow, famished look, and his fine Venetian clothes fitted over muscled arms and shoulders now, where before they seemed to hang loosely as a mummer’s costume. But perhaps, like Al-Qasim, he would never truly recover from whatever torments had been inflicted upon him. I sighed.

‘She’ll come around,’ Willem told Justinian. ‘You just might have to wait another ten or so years.’

Justinian chuckled and turned back to his corrections. He worked quietly but quickly, passing the corrected sheets back to Willem without looking up, as if he’d been part of our workshop for years.

Willem seemed as content as he had been in Venice, perhaps even more so, and whistled softly to himself while he worked. He spent long hours away from the house, refusing all offers of supper, swearing that he ate enough in the palace kitchens to keep him going all day.

‘I haven’t seen Willem this happy for months,’ said Valentina.

We sat at home, with the windows wide open to let in any hint of the evening breeze. The scent of jasmine and the evening calls of the
muezzins
drifted in on the summer air.

‘It’s the work,’ I said. ‘He likes having something to do, something of his own.’

‘Hmm, perhaps.’

‘You think it’s more than that?’

She sneaked a glance at me. ‘Just something Lady Elizabeth asked me last week.’

‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘People are talking.’

‘Always.’

‘About me and Will?’

‘You are most intriguing, or so I hear.’

‘I wish that was true,’ I said. ‘So. What are they saying? Do they expect us to be married?’

‘They expect everyone to be married,’ she said. ‘As soon as my husband died, everyone in Venice wanted to marry me off again.’

‘But why does it matter to them?’ I asked.

‘It doesn’t. Not really. Perhaps they are bored? I don’t know. You are two young people living under the same roof. Therefore, they will speculate. It is human nature.’

I’d heard the whispers, the hints, at the embassy receptions and parties. There weren’t many foreign women in Constantinople, but they seemed to watch me, all the time, over their fans. It was hard to ignore them.

‘But they are irrelevant,’ said Valentina. ‘The question is: are you going to marry Willem?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I thought as much,’ she said.

‘Marry Will? But he’s like my brother.’

‘He is of a lower station in life to you, but if you wanted to marry him, it could be arranged,’ she said. ‘It would also be convenient. You could run the business as man and wife. Is that what you want?’

‘I haven’t thought about it,’ I said.

‘That is an answer in itself.’

For just a moment, I let myself imagine it: Willem sitting by the fire reading with me, eating with gusto the meal I’d prepared, being a father to —

‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘No, no. That would be impossible.’

She laughed. ‘Isabella, you should see your face. Poor Willem. He’s not so dreadful.’

‘No! He’s not dreadful at all. He’s very dear to me. But it’s just — it’s not like that. Not for me. Why would anyone think so?’

‘They see what they wish to see.’

I closed the book in my lap and placed it gently on the table. ‘Do you think I should, Valentina?’

‘I do not think you should settle for anything less than what you want, or who you want, with your whole being.’

‘If only I knew what that was.’

‘Search inside yourself. You will see.’

‘I don’t think there’s anything there to find,’ I said.

‘Perhaps not yet. But if it ever happens, you will know. You won’t have to ask me or anyone else whether or not it’s right.’

I looked down at my ink-stained fingers. I suppose if you have a mother or sisters, you get used to such conversations. I’d never had anyone except Nanny, when I was young, and now Valentina. I wasn’t sure how much or how little I was allowed to say, how much of my heart I should reveal. I took a deep breath.

‘What if it never happens?’

‘If your destiny doesn’t lie that way, know this,’ said Valentina. She leaned forward to gaze into my eyes. ‘If you have a vocation, as we do, if you have friends, books, adventure, that is more than enough to fill up a life. Look at me. Do you see an unfortunate woman before you?’

‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘I see a busy, happy, powerful woman.’

‘Thank you.’ Valentina blushed, just a little, and sat back. ‘I am blessed, it’s true. So you can believe me when I say that there is no need to settle for something less than you deserve. Nor do you have to marry because it is expected, or because you need protection. You and I, at least, have that luxury. Most women in this world do not.’

I picked up a corner of her veil and let the silk run through my fingers like water. ‘It’s true,’ I said. ‘All of it. We’re lucky.’

‘Aren’t we? Every day is a joy. How many women — or men — can say the same thing? Even when we are in danger, even as the forces of ignorance threaten us, I adore this life. There is laughter, fine books, sometimes music, work that matters, great beauty, wonder and delight. It is more than most people dare dream.’ She fluttered her fan against the warm evening air. ‘Besides, you can always take a lover.’

‘Signora Contarini!’

‘You are shocked?’ she said. ‘I have done so many times.’

‘You have?’

‘Indeed, and I will again. It is extremely pleasant. And if they turn out to be boring, then … pfft.’ She flicked her fingers. ‘But I must admit, sometimes I do worry what will become of me in my old age.’

‘You will always have me. And Will. All of us. We’re a family now, of sorts.’

‘True.’

‘In spite of everything you say, you could get married again if you wanted,’ I said.

All of a sudden, the most obvious solution in the world floated into my brain. I could hardly believe it hadn’t occurred to me before.

‘Why! You could marry Al-Qasim.’

She laughed so much that tears poured down her face and she wiped them away with a handkerchief.

‘Bless you, child, don’t you start. I have no intention of marrying, and even if I wished to, Al-Qasim is not, as you English say, for marrying.’

‘But if you like each other?’

‘We do, very much,’ she said. ‘But not in that way. Neither one of us has much use for marriage, though perhaps that is why we get on so well. As a girl, I was given little choice, betrothed at fifteen. I prayed only that my husband would be a good man, which he was. When he died, I knew I would never marry again. I told my family so, and they wanted me to retire to a convent. In a way, it might have been a blessing to join a community of women, of prayer, of song.’

‘I can’t see you in a convent, somehow,’ I said. ‘Obeying rules. Not speaking.’

‘You’d be surprised.’ She smiled. ‘Some of the most powerful women on earth are abbesses. But you’re right — I like my comforts. I like laughing. Perhaps I should start my own order.’

‘The Little Sisters of the Roaring Lion?’

‘Sounds splendid. Will that make you happier than the thought of me living alone?’

‘I only want happiness for you,’ I said.

‘And I have it.’

‘But Al-Qasim —’

‘Isabella, I cannot say much more without offending your sensibilities even further. I’m sorry.’

‘I don’t understand.’

She sighed. ‘You don’t need to. Al-Qasim and I are the best of friends, but what we desire is as opposite as night and day.’ She looked at me. ‘Willem said to him once — I remember it so well — that he left nothing behind in Venice. But there is, of course, Luis.’

‘Al-Qasim … Luis?’

I cast my mind back: to the escape from Seville, with Al-Qasim in great pain and Luis tending his injuries with such care; to our workshop in Venice, where their desks sat side by side in the gentle winter sunshine; to the home they shared overlooking the canal; to Al-Qasim’s sorrow as our ship left the city behind.

‘Two men — together?’

I’d never heard of such a thing before, but there are so many things on earth I have yet to learn that I long ago ceased feeling too surprised at my own ignorance.

‘I have shocked you again,’ Valentina said.

‘Not at all,’ I lied. ‘It makes some kind of sense. I just never realised.’

‘It is unusual, I know. But not unheard of. You know it to be true, in your heart, don’t you?’

I nodded. ‘I see it now.’

‘It must be a great secret, though. Such love is punishable by death everywhere in Europe.’

‘Yes, of course,’ I said quickly. ‘I’d never do anything to put them in danger.’

‘I know that,’ she said. ‘That’s why I can trust you with this secret. We are weary of lying to you. You are our dearest friend, and between friends there must be truth, yes?’

‘Yes.’

She was right. We all kept so many secrets. It had become second nature to us.

‘Although,’ she went on, ‘it is a truth we need not share with Willem just yet. I cannot be sure what he would say or do.’

‘Nor I.’

I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with this new truth myself, but I was certain of my love for my friends and that I would never let anybody hurt them.

If they were willing to take such risks, to live with that dangerous secret, then surely their love must be real and powerful. But such extreme passions seemed alien to our lives of books and ideas and dreams, and most unlike the two rational philosophers I thought I knew so well. Or were they? I couldn’t fathom it. I thought of my mother, leaving behind her home, her family, her language, everything, to be with my father. He, too, had appeared to be the most restrained of men, but they must have shared a great love — so great that he couldn’t bear to speak of her after her death, his grief too intense for mere words.

I couldn’t imagine being struck by such passion. But nor could I see myself married to Willem — or anyone else, for that matter — simply because it was convenient or expected. Most of the women I’d met in England and in Venice had married for duty, for safety, for the ambition of their brothers or the glory of their fathers. Some were happy enough but many were not, and their despair or lethargy or bitterness was as intense as any romance. I couldn’t risk that. For the moment, like Valentina, I had the liberty of ignoring the gossip and the expectations. I could not, and did not wish to, think about anything but safeguarding our lives and our safety. That was what mattered — for now.

‘Perhaps, one day,’ said Valentina, ‘we can all live happily, surrounded by books, in a country free of meddling priests and politicians.’

‘Is that what you really want?’

‘For the moment,’ she said with a sigh, ‘all I want is supper.’

Already, Al-Qasim and I had transcribed and translated the works of Cato and a mathematical treatise by Leonardo da Vinci, which made no sense whatsoever to me, but which Al-Qasim insisted was a work of genius.

‘This proves,’ he said, brandishing a fistful of paper, ‘that man can fly.’

‘Then it’s fanciful, surely.’

‘Not at all. It includes instructions for creating a flying machine. Imagine!’

‘Please don’t say that you want to build one.’

‘I’ve thought about it, I assure you.’

‘But?’

‘Sadly, the instructions are incomplete.’

‘That’s lucky,’ I said. ‘Or next thing we know, you’d be jumping off the top of the Galata Tower and I’d have to pay for your funeral.’

‘I could probably finish da Vinci’s calculations myself.’

‘Don’t bother,’ I said. ‘If humans were meant to fly, we would have been born with wings.’

‘I suppose so,’ he said. ‘Although some have argued that God means us to invent such machines for ourselves, to prove our intelligence.’

‘Or our stupidity.’

He chuckled. ‘Nevertheless, the theory is fascinating and I cannot wait to hear what my fellow mathematicians make of this
when it is finally published. It’s surprisingly like the work of your Mister Wilkins in Oxford.’

‘Flying machines,’ I said. ‘You are hilarious.’

He bent down and kissed my forehead. ‘I’m glad you know the truth now,
bella
,’ he whispered.

‘So am I,’ I said, but I didn’t look up at him.

I’d thought I knew him, that I understood his mind and his world — at least a little. I’d always known him as a forthright man, someone whose life was built on ethics, someone I trusted. And now?

I realised I knew very little about him. But what I did know, I loved: his wisdom, his clear-sighted view of the world, his intellect, his wry humour, his loyalty.

I remembered, too, Luis’s fierce fight to protect me in Seville, his kind smile across the workshop.

I knew they had risked their lives to bring new thoughts and words to the world, and that as young men both had fled their homes to escape punishment for the crime of free speech.