The Sultan's Seal (28 page)

A
gibbous moon floods the Bosphorus with light and throws into sharp relief the trees and bushes rushing by as the phaeton races north.

If anything happens to Sybil Hanoum,” Kamil points out, “the blame would fall on Shukriye Hanoum, since the invitation is written in her name. Clever. I wonder why Shukriye Hanoum, though. She’s not a threat to anyone.”

“Well, someone sure doesn’t like her.”

After a while, Kamil adds, “Sybil Hanoum said she thought Perihan Hanoum was angry because she had wanted to marry Prince Ziya but he became engaged to Shukriye instead. Apparently Perihan Hanoum’s marriage is unhappy.”

Bernie slaps the reins across the horses’ backs. “Well, there’s a motive to hate Shukriye enough to set her up. What do you know about her mother, this Asma Sultan?”

“A rather formidable but harmless lady, according to Sybil Hanoum.”

Bernie grimaces. “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”

“Pardon?”

“Shakespeare.
Macbeth.
”

“It might be Perihan Hanoum at the villa, not her mother,” Kamil cautions.

“Well, we’ll see what we’re up against. The woman or her daughter. Maybe the whole harem.” He laughs nervously and turns his wind-reddened face to Kamil. “Think we can handle this?”

Kamil doesn’t smile. “We don’t know who else will be there. Perhaps the grand vizier himself.” Grimly, “But I’m ready for a fight.”

Bernie grins. “I’ll bet you are.” He pats his holster. “I’m glad you and this other friend of mine here are along for the ride.”

By the time Kamil and Bernie reach the turnoff beyond the village of Tarabya, the moon has contracted to a mottled white disk.

“Asma Sultan’s villa is farther north, I believe.” Kamil uses his handkerchief to wipe the dust from his face as the phaeton slows at a crossroad.

“Git up,” Bernie urges the horses.

The road ascends sharply again and the horses strain. A stand of pines and cypresses blocks the view before the vista opens onto an expanse of water milky in the moonlight. The phaeton picks up speed. After a while, they hurtle downhill again. Kamil can make out the enormous bulk of a house silhouetted against the reflected light.

“That must be it.” Bernie points. “Strange. I don’t see any lights.”

“They might have their shutters closed.”

The phaeton pulls up to the wrought-iron gate.

“There should be a night watchman,” observes Kamil as he jumps to the ground. “He’s probably asleep.”

He peers around the gate, but the guardhouse is empty. Bernie has come up beside him.

He looks through the gate at the dark house. “Looks like no one’s home. Do you think we got the wrong house?”

“It matches the description they gave us in the village.”

“Does she have another one? She’s a sultan’s daughter. They have cartloads of money.”

“It’s possible. I suppose the invitation could have been to Perihan Hanoum’s villa or even the vizier’s villa. They all have their own konaks and summer houses.”

“Do you know where they are? We’ll have to check them all out, one at a time.”

“I don’t.” Kamil tenses. “We’d have to go back to the village and ask the headman.”

“Well, then, let’s get on with it.” Bernie looks closely at Kamil, staring at the dark villa. “What is it?”

Kamil shudders and turns. “I don’t know. I think you have a saying, ‘A crow walked across my grave.’”

“I never heard that one, buddy.”

“You know, the old Greek name of this village, Tarabya, was Pharmakeus.” He thinks of his father’s body being washed in the mosque at this very moment, prepared for burial tomorrow morning.

“Pharmakeus. The medicine man?”

“The poisoner. Medea was said to have thrown away her poison here.”

“Well, this place gives me the dithers. Let’s get out of here.” He climbs into the phaeton.

Holding the reins, he turns to Kamil. “You don’t suppose she really did go to visit Shukriye Hanoum?”

“I suppose that’s a possibility. But why would she write something different in her letter?”

Bernie shakes his head. “Maybe showing off for her sister. There’s always been a kind of rivalry between them. Maitlin’s the successful one.” He flicks the reins. The phaeton strains after the horses. “Sybil’s the one with fantasies. She’s been stuck here too long looking after my uncle. No wonder she’s invented herself a whole Orient of her own.”

T
he moon appeared in our square of sky, bleaching us of color.

Mary turned her head to me. “Thank you for being a good friend to me. I wouldn’t have lasted here without you.” She moved her face forward and kissed me chastely on the lips.

I squeezed her hand. She lay with her head flung back, letting the moonlight seep into her eyes. I heard the chortling of the kettle boiling on the coals.

After a long while, she whispered, “Do you remember the sugared almonds?”

I didn’t. “Yes, of course.”

“And the time we caught a fish in here.”

“You caught it with your hands.”

“It was weak and tired. Who knows how long it had been trying to get out.”

“It’s cruel to have a net around the pool.”

“Are they afraid the women will escape?” she asked, laughing at her own wit.

“I think rather it’s to keep the men from looking in.”

“Men will get in anyway,” she said with a resigned certainty.

I leaned on my elbow and looked at her. Her hair was white. I let it flow through my hand.

“Together we’re safe,” I assured her.

She turned to me, surprised. The blue of her eyes came back into focus.

“Will you come?” she asked hesitantly.

I nodded yes and let my head rest beside hers, our eyes on the heavens. The moon had become a small, hard disk the color of alloyed gold. A wild dog barked nearby.

Violet put a glass of tea beside Mary and handed another to me, then withdrew into the shadows of her cubicle. I could see only the red eyes of the charcoal peering out of the brazier below the steaming pots.

S
ybil sits shivering on the platform, holding the lamp. Her clothing is disheveled, hastily thrown over her wet body. Her throat is hoarse from shouting. Her eyes keep scanning the walls.

Sybil looks up at the eunuch. He is sitting just outside the circle of light, eyes closed. She wonders what kind of life eunuchs live. It is said they are powerful, but this man’s shoulders are thin, his face a grim mask. His large hands are laced together in front of his knees.

“Arif Agha,” she calls, thinking he might respond to his name.

He doesn’t answer, but she sees a flicker of white under his lids.

“I do wish you’d say something. I think you can understand my Turkish. Can you speak English?” Exasperated, she adds, “Look, we have to get out of here. Parlez vous Français?”

Speaking in French reminds her of her visit to Shukriye Hanoum. She had found her story appalling but somehow fantastic, as though Shukriye were a character in an Oriental opera. She thinks wryly that she too is now an actor in a potentially tragic play, an Englishwoman and a eunuch trapped on a floating stage. She finds herself laughing. The eunuch’s now-open eyes register surprise and, she fears, disapproval.

I’m being hysterical, she thinks, and forces herself to stop. Another look she has seen in the eunuch’s eyes—malevolence—puts her on guard. She moves closer to the boat.

Suddenly she remembers where she has heard Arif Agha’s name before.

“You’re the one who told the police about the British woman Hannah, about the carriage that picked her up.”

She isn’t sure in the dim light, but thinks the eunuch grimaces.

When he doesn’t answer, Sybil murmurs, “They never found who murdered her.”

She peers at him suspiciously through the deepening gloom. It occurs to her that Mary worked for Perihan, and that Arif Agha had probably encountered her as well. Sybil wonders where retired eunuchs go. Arif Agha seems to have retired in plain sight.

“Another young woman was killed recently, Mary Dixon. Did you know her too?”

When the eunuch still doesn’t answer, Sybil forces herself to stand and walk toward him, her hands held out before her in a conciliatory gesture.

“Look, Arif Agha, I don’t care what happened. All I care about now is getting out of here. We have to help each other or we’ll rot in here.” She stumbles over the Turkish word for rot. “No one will find us here. We’ll starve.”

When she is an arm’s length away from Arif Agha, she stops.

“If you’re worried about getting in trouble, I can help you. When we get out of here, I’ll take you to the magistrate of Beyoglu and you can talk to him, tell him what you saw. The police will be grateful if you help them. They won’t hurt you. I promise.” Sybil is aware of the duplicity of such a promise, which she has no way of keeping, but she needs Arif Agha’s cooperation or, at least, his goodwill. She wonders anxiously whether the danger from the eunuch isn’t as great as being trapped in this underground chamber.

She decides to make small talk, both to keep his attention and to keep her rising fear under control. “Have you been in Asma Sultan’s service a long time?”

With a strangely distorted, high-pitched squeal, the eunuch scuttles backward like a crab and crouches at the far end of the platform.

“I can see why you’d be afraid of her.” She looks upward at the now-dark sky. Suddenly animated, she moves closer to the eunuch and says, “I have an idea. I think I can protect you against Asma Sultan. I’m a friend of her daughter and other important people. I can make sure someone takes care of you.” Smiling, Sybil spreads her hands. “I’ll tell them you saved my life.”

The eunuch uncoils himself in a sudden violent movement and leaps at Sybil. His mouth is stretched wide but emits only a strangled sound. With her arms, she wards off his hands groping for her neck. As they struggle, the lamp illuminates their faces. At the back of the pink cavern of his mouth is a lump of scar tissue. His tongue has been cut out.

The lamp rolls into the water. Sybil screams into the darkness.

W
hen Mary next looked at me, her eyes were like coals. She blinked and shifted her gaze around the platform.

“It’s so dark. It’s hard to see.” She pushed herself laboriously up to a sitting position, then to her feet. “I’d like to go home. I don’t feel well.”

I got to my feet and took her elbow. “What’s the matter?” I peered into her face.

“I don’t know. I can’t see.” She shook my hand away.

“You’re getting a chill. Have some more tea.” I signaled to Violet that she should refill our glasses.

“I can’t move my arm.” Mary’s speech had become slurred, with a hysterical undertone.

She staggered away from me, her foot knocking over her tea glass. The moonlight caught the edge of Violet’s kaftan.

“Violet, come and help me. Mary Hanoum is ill.” I realized suddenly that the carriage wasn’t due to return for us for at least another hour and the village was half an hour’s walk away.

I heard a splash behind me and swung around. Mary was gone. I raced to the pool, knelt on the boards, and looked over the edge. The obsidian water reflected rocking shards of moon.

“Bring the lamp,” I shouted. I turned and climbed into the water. The light of the lamp made the surface more brilliant, but revealed nothing beneath it. I struggled through the pool, fighting my billowing clothing, my face against the water, feeling beneath the surface with both hands.

“I’ll find her.”

I looked up. Violet’s lean brown body trailed a black shadow across the walls. She slid beneath the surface with barely a sound.

B
ernie pulls on the reins.

“Why are you slowing down?”

“I thought I heard something.”

The night is alive with animal sounds, sudden trills, fish falling into the water just beyond the road. An owl hoots from the forest.

“There it is again,” Bernie whispers. An odd cry, faint as if muffled.

“It must be coming from Asma Sultan’s villa,” cries Kamil. “There’s no other house near here.”

Bernie swings the phaeton around, whips the horses, and thundering back down the road, they halt at the gate and jump out.

“Let’s get the lamps lit so we can see better.”

“The gate is locked.” Kamil clambers up the ilex that covers the wall like a green mantle. He reappears on the other side of the wrought-iron gate and unlatches it.

The iron creaks as they push the heavy doors open.

They move quickly down the carriageway toward the house. Kamil pushes open the unlocked front door. Washes of light dart across the walls as they move through the entry hall and down a corridor. They emerge in a room so vast that their lamps pick out only patches of parquet floor and the bases of man-width marble pillars.

“This must be the reception room,” Kamil notes.

Bernie’s lamp moves off and is soon lost in the gloom. Kamil hears a crash of crockery. Suddenly the air jumps with shadows as Bernie lights a gas lamp on the wall.

“Holy Mother of Jesus!” Bernie stares at the shattered object on the floor.

“What is it?”

“A Ming vase. I’ve never seen one that big before. It’s priceless.”

They look around. The room is hung with enormous gilded mirrors that multiply the illumination. Swags of colored glass chandeliers hang from the ceiling.

They pause, listening carefully.

“Nothing,” Bernie says finally.

“She must be in this house somewhere. We should be quiet, in case the others are still here. We’ll have the advantage of surprise.”

“The hell with that,” Bernie says, and shouts, “Sybil.”