The Bellini Card (44 page)

“Go on.”

“The Contessa d’Aspi d’Istria draws her own conclusions. The imperious young visitor writes her a letter. Carla is a snob—she imagines that the Duke of Naxos is Abdülmecid. She’s quite charmed. So, apparently, is his cicerone.

“Later on, when someone discreetly offers the Bellini portrait to the sultan through the calligrapher Metin Yamaluk, this envoy suspects it is her. He’s grander now. A pasha. He has farther to fall, so he needs someone he can trust. Someone in the family. He sends a Tatar to Yamaluk, to make sure, but the calligrapher is an old man with a weak heart, and the Tatar kills him. Maybe that was an accident—I think it was.”

“You only think so? Why so uncertain now, Yashim lala?”

“There’s no evidence either way. But I think it was an accident because it was so ill omened. For you.”

“For me?”

Yashim sighed. “You were the Duke of Naxos, Resid.”

“And you think the omens were proved?” Resid gave a tight little laugh. “It’s not over yet, Yashim
lala
. Go on.”

Yashim shrugged. “Why bother? You know as well as I do that you
were afraid. You were afraid that if the contessa started to negotiate with the sultan, the truth would come out. So you decided to kill her, and everyone else associated with that game of cards.”

Resid gave a strange smile. “So, the contessa is dead. Thank you for that, Yashim.”

Yashim cocked his head to one side. “No, Resid. She didn’t die, because I stopped the killer.”

“I see.” Resid blinked. “The indefatigable Yashim.”

“No, no. I’m very tired, Resid.”

Resid leaned forward. He brought his sweating face to within a few inches of Yashim’s.

“It’s a new regime, Yashim lala,” he hissed. “New men. The sultan’s young, like me—but I have experience he needs. A new regime. And, Yashim, just between ourselves, I control it.”

Yashim said nothing.

“Fetch me the letter,” Resid burst out. “Fetch it and save your skin. Or go away and die, if you prefer.” He leaned back against the marble wall. “Barbieri died. So did Eletro, and Boschini. Maybe the contessa’s next, after all. And do you know? Nobody cares.”

Yashim stood up. “You’re right, of course. It’s only Pappendorf who’ll be surprised. I suppose the Austrian ambassador thought you were delivering him the sultan.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ruggerio was an informer. He told the Austrians that the Duke of Naxos was Abdülmecid, so Pappendorf came to you, didn’t he? With a threat to expose the sultan—and an offer of cooperation. He expected you to manage it, I suppose. Blackmail at a high level. You went along with it, of course, to avoid suspicion falling on you. You and the Austrians, together, could eradicate the evidence against the Duke of Naxos. No one would ever know he’d been to Venice at all. The Austrians would help by giving your assassin a free hand, but in return they expected to own the sultan. How surprised they’ll be to discover that all they own is you.”

“I control affairs,” Resid said grimly.

“For how long, Resid?” Yashim asked. “Viziers come and go, don’t they? Sometimes they go gracefully, with blessings, to retirement and old
age. But you’re too young to retire safely. You’d live too long and know too much.”

“I control affairs.” His voice shook.

“The Austrians might not think so, Resid. They bought a sultan. You have delivered—who? A man who bungles a simple killing even when everyone’s straining to look the other way.”

Yashim got to his knees. His face was set. “The palace is a little world,” he said. “You wouldn’t be the first vizier to forget that the people, too, have a voice. I saw them, Resid, when they gathered around the great tree. It wouldn’t take much, I think, when the people learn that you sold your sultan’s name to protect your own.”

Resid was staring at him, his mouth open.

“The trouble with advisers is that they get things wrong. Even Joseph Nasi, I recall, got it wrong from time to time. The good thing about them is that they’re dispensable.

“You, Resid, promised everyone your loyalty and your good faith. The people, with your pieties. The sultan, with loyalty. The Austrians, with a leash on the sultan. There’s a diagram we both know, where the background changes as you move. But
com’era, dov’era:
you’ve disappointed even me.”

A memory flashed into Yashim’s mind, something Carla had said. “When it’s all gone, Resid, honor is all we have left.”

He stood up and walked out without looking back.

Y
ASHIM
returned to his apartment. Elvan had brought the dishes back from the baker’s.

He peeled and chopped the cucumbers. He sprinkled them with salt, crushed two cloves of garlic, chopped them fine, and put them in a bowl with some yogurt. After a while he squeezed the water from the cucumbers and mixed them into the yogurt.

Then he washed his hands and sat silently on his divan, looking out across the rooftops of Istanbul.

“I brought raki,” Palewski said, taking the bottle from his bag. “I wanted to feel properly home.”

Yashim fetched two painted glasses and a jug of water. He set some olives on the table. He put some of the artichokes on a dish, with the aubergines, sliced. He cut the bread and left it on the board, which he put on the table with the yogurt.

Palewski poured an inch of raki into each glass and turned it milky with the water.

He handed one to Yashim.
“Prosit!
”

When they had drunk, he sat tossing an olive in his hand and looking expectantly at Yashim.

Yashim shook his head. “How’s Marta?”

“I’ll tell you about Marta later,” Palewski said. “I want to know if you’ve heard anything from Resid.”

Yashim lifted an artichoke to his mouth. It tasted very good.

“Yashim.”

“I saw him this afternoon, at the hammam.”

“So he doesn’t know about Venice, then?”

“He knew when I told him.”

Palewski stared. “That’s a death warrant. For you and the contessa, too. Who’s to say he wasn’t just doing his duty, protecting the sultan’s honor?”

Yashim took a sip of raki. “Me,” he said. “And he knew it, too.”

Palewski frowned. “You against him?”

Yashim wiped his hands on a napkin and laid it on the table. “Remember the Duke of Naxos? Carla said that the title would have reverted to the sultan on Joseph Nasi’s death.”

“Which is why Abdülmecid used it.”

“No, Palewski. Abdülmecid wasn’t the sultan then. He was only the crown prince.”

“Hairsplitting, Yashim.”

“Maybe. But fakery is endemic in Venice,” Yashim said. “How do we know that the Duke of Naxos who came to Venice in Carnivale really
was
the sultan?”

Palewski gave an impatient shrug. “Carla recognized him, Yashim. And then—the Tatar. The murders. Covering up a youthful indiscretion.”

“An indiscretion, yes,” Yashim echoed. “It was committed by a man nobody really knew. He wore a mask and called himself the Duke of Naxos. It hurt me to think that the sultan could have gone drinking and gambling in Venice, Palewski.” He bit his lip. “There’s something else. I saw the valide today. Abdülmecid has set her up in the Baghdad Kiosk.”

“Good for him.”

Yashim nodded. “She mentioned how innocent he was of life, too. But that’s not it. Good for him, you say? Yes. Abdülmecid might kick over the
traces once in his life, but he was brought up well. An Ottoman gentleman, however young, does not pay visits in the character of an enemy. And Nasi was an implacable enemy of Venice.”

Palewski was still. “You’re right, Yashim. I hadn’t thought of that. Whatever sultans have been in their time, they have always had, what? Form. Even Mahmut, poor fellow. He was a great bear, but you couldn’t fault his manners.”

He speared an artichoke. “But if the sultan wasn’t masquerading as the Duke of Naxos, who was?”

“Resid Pasha.”

Palewski choked, so Yashim got up to fetch him another glass of water.

“That, of course, changes everything,” Palewski spluttered.

“Everything? No. The pattern doesn’t change. Carla thought she recognized the duke. And Ruggerio was watching—mistakenly—the professional guide, whose gift was to assess the people he met. I think something in the way Carla behaved alerted him, too.”

Palewski clouded his glass with water. “And he informed on them—to the Austrians.”

“The same pattern,” Yashim said. “I don’t know when Resid realized the mistake. He didn’t correct it. That was his conceit.”

“And the Duke of Naxos was taken to be the sultan.”

“Yes. Resid allowed people to believe the sultan had been to Venice.”

Yashim ate a slice of aubergine.

“Only when the sultan came to the throne did Carla get Metin Yamaluk to hint to the sultan about the painting. She wanted to be discreet, for her sake and his.”

“Giving him the opportunity to delicately ignore her, if he liked,” Palewski said.

Yashim spread his hands. “Instead, the sultan was intrigued. He had nothing to hide. He knew nothing about the contessa. He’d never been to Venice. He simply wanted to follow up on the hint. He wanted the painting.”

“And when he sent for you,” Palewski reasoned, “Resid had to make a move.”

“He moved fast. He stood me down.”

Palewski sucked in his cheeks. “He decided to trade on what the Austrians already believed, Yashim. And sent the Tatar to eliminate all witnesses. One of his people. Resid’s mother is a Tatar, too.”

Yashim nodded. “He was also meant to recover the incriminating love letters Resid had sent Carla.”

“Love letters? I thought we were dealing with gambling debts. A promissory note.”

“So did I, until Carla told me the truth. Or the half-truth. At the time we both believed the letters had been written by the sultan.”

“But—but they’re gone, aren’t they? With the painting?”

Yashim looked his friend in the eye. “Resid doesn’t know that. He thinks I have them.”

Palewski reached for the raki and poured them both another drink. “What will he do now?”

Yashim shook his head slowly. “I see no way out. We can only wait.”

Palewski blew out his cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Yash. Making you think of food at a time like this. I shouldn’t have come.”

He began to rub his wrists, unconsciously.

“We have to eat,” Yashim said. “How’s Marta, then?”

Palewski regarded the ceiling thoughtfully.

“I have some rather strange news, as it happens.”

“She’s getting married?”

“Married?” Palewski looked astonished. “Good God, Yashim. You
are
morbid. No, thank heavens, she’s not getting married. She’s back in the house.” He shook his head. “And she’s cleared up everything. Everything. She rearranged my books.”

“I saw that,” Yashim confessed. “I didn’t want to tell you.”

“No, well, I admit I was pretty aggrieved. I’d made a pile of books on the table in the hall. Folios, some of them—a church history by Foulbert. An interesting seventeenth-century survey of the Greek islands by a Dutchman, writing in Latin, not accurate but—well, anyway, that’s not important. Thing is, I’d been dropping books onto this table for weeks on my way in and out of the garden—you remember coming into the garden, when all this began?—and it’s a bit dim down there.”

“A bit dim. So?”

“When Marta started to shift the stack she found a letter stuck between two books. It must have been left on the table, and I didn’t see it.”

“A letter?”

“Propped on the mantelpiece when I got home. Arms on the fold in green ink, raised.”

“Palace?”

“Invitation, Yashim. He had been there all the time. An invitation to the sultan’s inaugural ball.” Palewski buried his face in his glass. “Half a mind to cut it, anyway,” he mumbled.

Yashim looked at him, unsmiling.

“Signor Brett would go,” he said. “Signor Brett has the proper garb.”

Palewski shrugged. “You know I hate that kind of thing.”

“Honor of the Poles,” Yashim said.

“Dishonor, more like. Bad champagne.”

“The Austrian ambassador will have spoken to Karolyi by then.”