The Aviary Gate (5 page)

‘Do I?' she said into the darkness again.

‘Of course you do, woman,' he said, not unkindly. And then, turning over, ‘Now can we please get some sleep?'

The ambassador's residence was a large square edifice built, in the Ottoman style, of lime and stone, its windows shaded by elaborately latticed wooden shutters. Situated just a little way outside the walls of the district of Galata, the place had the air of a country house, with a large walled garden and adjoining vineyards. Freezing in winter, it was a pleasant place in summer, with a fountain of running water in the courtyard and waxy blooms of jasmine climbing up the inner pillars to the balconies above. A suite of the largest and most comfortable on the first storey was occupied by the ambassador, Sir Henry Lello and his wife. Those next in rank in the ambassador's entourage, including his secretary Paul Pindar, occupied smaller rooms on the second storey. The rest slept in dormitories on the ground floor.

The house was stirring now. Paul sent a servant to fetch Thomas Dallam, and then Paul and John Carew made their way to Paul's upstairs chamber, where they knew they would not be overheard. Soon they heard Dallam's solid tread on the wooden floorboards outside.

‘Good day to you, Thomas.'

‘Secretary Pindar.' Thomas Dallam, a stout Lancashireman in his middle years, nodded to them, but did not enter the room. He was dressed for the street, wearing a loose Turkish robe over his English clothes, a requirement of all foreigners living in Constantinople.

‘Come in, Tom,' Paul said. ‘I know you're anxious to be off to the palace, so I won't take much of your time. Tell me, how goes the
marvellous device? Will the Grand Signor find it a gift worth waiting for, do you think?'

‘Aye.' Dallam spoke shortly. ‘The Honourable Company won't regret their choice.'

‘I should hope not,' Paul smiled, ‘the Honourable Company left us kicking our heels here for three years whilst they made up their minds what to send. They say the Great Turk has a rage for clocks and automata, and all kind of mechanical devices.'

‘True.' Dallam grinned suddenly. ‘He sends his man almost daily to see if my work is finished yet.'

‘And … is it?'

‘All in good time, Secretary Pindar.'

‘It's quite all right, Thomas. I don't mean to press you.'

Dallam was known to be prickly on the subject, and jealous of any interference with himself or his men, no fewer than five of whom had accompanied him aboard the company's vessel the
Hector
on the six-month voyage to bring the Sultan's gift to Constantinople.

‘I've heard that you've quite restored the damage that the organ sustained on the journey out here, although Sir Henry tells me it will take you and your men some time yet to reassemble in the palace. That's a job of work, my friend.'

‘It is.' At the mention of the ambassador, Dallam, who had taken off his hat, now scratched his head impatiently and replaced it. ‘Now, if it is all the same to you, Secretary Pindar, the caique's ready for us and our janissaries don't like to be kept waiting.'

‘Of course, of course.' Paul held up his hand. ‘But just one more thing.'

‘Yes?'

‘Carew tells me you took him with you yesterday.'

‘Aye, sir.' He saw Dallam's gaze flicker briefly across to Carew. ‘One of my men – Robin the joiner – fell sick. And after all that business in the kitchens, with Bull's finger and all—' he twisted his hat in his fingers. ‘Well, we all know how good John is with his hands.'

‘Tell him what we saw, Tom.' Carew, who was leaning up against the window, spoke now for the first time.

For a moment or two Dallam was silent.

‘I thought we two had agreed?' he said at last, uncertain suddenly.

‘We had, I know. I am sorry, Tom, but it can't be helped. I can vouch for Secretary Pindar,' Carew said. ‘There is no danger with him, I swear it.'

‘Well, I'm flattered to be spoken so highly of …' Impatiently, Paul walked three paces to the door. Grasping Thomas Dallam by the arm, he drew him into the room and shut the door. ‘Enough now. Tell me what you saw,' he said, his face pale. ‘Tell me everything, from the beginning, and it will be between the three of us.'

Thomas Dallam took one look at Paul, and this time he did not hesitate.

‘Well, as you know, for the last month my men and I have been going to the palace every day to assemble the Honourable Company's gift to the Sultan. There are two guards assigned to us, and also a dragoman who interprets, and every day they escort us through the First and Second Courtyards, to a secret gate, behind which lies a garden in the Sultan's private quarters – that's where we're to assemble the clock. We're only able to do it because the Great Turk himself is not much there. It seems that at this time of year he comes and goes as he pleases between his various summer palaces, taking most of the court and his women with him. And because of this it happens that there's something of a holiday feeling about the place—' Dallam stopped, seeming a little abashed by what he was about to say.

Pindar was sitting with his arms folded. ‘Go on, Thomas.'

‘Our two guards are fine fellows, my particular acquaintances you might say, after all this time working at the palace – these two have sort of … shown us around, as it were.' Dallam coughed nervously. ‘Sometimes they showed us other parts of the privy gardens, sometimes the little pleasure houses they call kiosks, once or twice they even ventured to show us the private chambers in the Sultan's own apartments. But yesterday – as chance would have it, on the day that Carew was there with me – they showed me something else.'

‘What was that, Tom?'

Dallam hesitated again but Carew nodded to him to continue.

‘While two of my carpenters were at work, one of them took us – Carew and I – across a little square courtyard paved with marble, and there, in the wall, he showed us a small grille. There was no one about, so our guard made signs with his hands – that's the custom of
everyone who works in the palace – that we should approach, although he wouldn't go near himself.

‘When we came to the grille we saw that the wall was very thick and grated on both sides with strong iron bars, and when we looked though the bars we saw a second, secret courtyard beyond, and in it some thirty of the Great Turk's concubines, playing with a ball.'

‘At first we thought they were young men playing,' Carew added, ‘for they were wearing what looked like breeches on their legs. But when we looked more closely we could see they had long hair hanging down their backs. They were all women, and beautiful ones, too.'

‘John and I …' Dallam glanced across at Carew. ‘We knew we shouldn't look. And even our guard grew angry with us for gazing too long, stamping his foot on the ground to make us come away. But we couldn't. We stood there amazed, like two men enchanted.'

‘And could the women see you?'

‘No. The grille was too small, but we looked at them for a long time. They were very young, just girls, most of them. I never saw a sight, Secretary Pindar, that pleased me so wonderfully well.'

‘But what John wants me to tell you is this.' Thomas Dallam paused again, clearing his throat with a cough. ‘There was one woman amongst them who was different from the rest. I noticed her because she was so fair, whereas the other women were dark. Her hair wasn't hanging down her back, but was fastened in a coil around her head and held with a rope of pearls. She seemed a little older than the others, and more richly dressed, with jewels at her ears and on her breast. But it was her skin that drew our eyes, the most beautiful skin, white and luminous as the moon. John took my arm, and I heard him say, “God help us, Tom. It's Celia. Celia Lamprey.” And that is all I know.'

When Dallam had gone a long silence filled the room. From outside the latticed shutters came the throaty ruffling of pigeons in the eaves, the incongruous sound, it occurred to Pindar, of an English summer's afternoon. He had not been to England for – how many years was it now? Eighteen years in all since he had left, first to Venice as factor for the merchant Parvish, then as a merchant in his own right with the Honourable Company. He pushed open the window and looked out
towards the Golden Horn, and the seven hills of the ancient city rising beyond.

‘That was quite a speech – for a Lancashire man.'

‘I told you: he has a way with words.'

Paul sat down on the window ledge. Compared to Carew's generally maverick air, he cut an altogether more sober figure. Dressed in his customary black, he was at once slender and well built. He ran his hands through his dark hair, revealing his only ornament, a single gold ring pierced through the lobe of one ear.

‘Celia is dead.' Paul spoke softly, his back still to Carew. From his pocket he took out a curious round object made from gilded brass, roughly the same size and shape as a pocket watch, and began to fiddle with it absently. ‘Shipwrecked. Drowned, nearly two years ago now. You are mistaken, John. It is impossible that you saw her, do you hear me? Quite impossible.'

Carew did not reply.

Paul flicked at the catch of the metal compact with his thumb so that the lid opened out, revealing the metal discs inside. One of them, which was marked like a miniature sundial, he now held out in front of him as if to take a reading.

‘You can discover most things with your compendium,' Carew noted drily, ‘but you won't find Celia that way.'

With a sudden movement Paul got to his feet. When he stood up he was half a head taller than Carew.

‘No man sees inside the Sultan's harem. No man – no Turk, let alone a Christian or a Jew – has ever seen inside it. And you, you who've only been here five minutes, you go in there once – just once – and expect me to believe that you did? No, John. Even by your standards, it's too much.'

‘Things happen to me, you know how it is.' Carew shrugged, unperturbed. ‘But I'm sorry, it must be a shock.' He ran a finger reflectively down his scar. ‘After all this time. I know how you must feel—'

‘No, you don't.' Paul interrupted him. ‘You don't know how I feel. No one knows how I feel.' He snapped the instrument shut. ‘Not even you.'

He sat down again, abruptly. ‘We must be sure, absolutely sure. But even then, what's to be done, John?' He rubbed his hand over his
face, pressing his fingers against his eyelids until lights danced before him. ‘Even if we find out for sure she is there, how can we ever admit what we know? It will jeopardise everything. Four years kicking our heels here whilst the Honourable Company makes up its mind what gifts to send the new Sultan … and now this. But wait, wait: we're going too fast. First, I must have more proof, absolute positive proof.' Paul ran his hands through his hair again. He turned to Carew. ‘You've been inside the palace. How difficult would it be to get some kind of message to her, do you think?'

Carew shrugged again, nonchalant. ‘Not difficult.' He glanced at Paul.

Paul returned his gaze levelly. ‘I don't like that smile, Carew,' he said after a while. ‘I know it of old.' He put one hand on Carew's shoulder, and pressed his thumb thoughtfully against the man's throat. ‘What have you done, Carew, you rat-catcher?'

‘A subtlety, that's all.'

‘A sugar subtlety?'

‘My speciality. This one was a boat made entirely from spun sugar. The old Bull squeaked a bit because I used up all his supplies, but it couldn't be helped. A complete merchantman, one of my finest …'

Paul increased the pressure.

‘… all right then, it was a figure of the
Celia
.'

‘Let me get this straight: you sent a subtlety in the shape of the
Celia
– Lamprey's merchantman, the one that was wrecked – into the Great Turk's palace?' Paul said, letting Carew go at last.

‘Not just into the palace, into the harem.' Carew rubbed his throat, and then added mildly, ‘Fog wanted English sweetmeats sent to the Sultan's women. Apparently it's all the fashion with the French and the Venetian embassies, and we must follow them in all things, as you well know.'

‘And so you thought you'd impress them?'

‘That's why you brought me here, isn't it? To help impress the Turks. To add lustre to our friend Fog's lack-o-lustre. Ha, ha, I jest, of course.' He cocked his head to one side. ‘Who would put up with me otherwise?'

‘I have to hand it to you, Carew, you have the strangest ideas sometimes,' he sighed. ‘But that—' he turned suddenly and pummelled his fist into the top of Carew's arm, ‘that was a damnably
good one. Brilliant, I might almost say. If it ever came anywhere near her, that is, which I doubt.'

‘Have you got a better idea?' Carew said.

Paul did not answer him. He stood up and went across to the window. He took out the compendium again and turned it so that he could read the motto engraved around the outer rim. ‘“As Time and Hours Pass Away, So Does the Life of Man Decay,”' he read. ‘“As Time must be Redeemed with Cost, Bestow it Well and let no Hour be Lost.”' Then he opened it again, and with his index finger carefully probed a second, hidden catch inside the base. A second secret lid opened, inside it a portrait.

The miniature of a girl. Reddish gold hair; pearls on milky skin.
Celia
. Was it possible?

‘And I've lost enough time already,' he said, almost absently. Then, looking sharply at Carew again, ‘but what we still need is more information.'

‘What about the white eunuch in the palace school? The one they say is an Englishman turned Turk?'

‘And there are several dragomen of his kind, too. They might be easier to get to. One's a Lancashire man, they tell me. Perhaps we should get Dallam to work on him … but no, you can never trust these turn-Turks. Besides, they say that it's only the black eunuchs who can enter the women's quarters. No. What we need is someone who has access to the palace, but doesn't live there. Someone who comes and goes freely.'