The Snake Stone (28 page)

G
EORGE
was sitting out in the little courtyard behind the hospice, his big face tilted to the sun, his eyes closed, with a skein of wool looped around his hands.

He opened his eyes and saw two men standing in front of him.

“Ha!” George boomed, lifting the wool from his lap. “You finds me like old womans now!”

He slipped his huge hands out of the wool and set it gently on the bench beside him.

“I sleeps like an old Greek lady,” he grumbled. He squinted up at his visitors. “What for you bring this rogue here, Yashim efendi? You wants I have bad dreams?”

Yashim smiled. “Murad Eslek, this is George.”

Murad Eslek shook his head. “I know George, efendi. Old bloke. Sells veg at that excuse for a market up the way from here. This ain’t George. Why, this man’s half his age and twice his size.”

George closed his eyes again and laughed weakly.

“Murad has been telling me about the Constantinedes brothers,” Yashim said.

George’s laugh turned into a cough. His eyes bulged, and he thumped his chest.

“What for you cares about such shits?” He spat on the cobbles. “Even Murad Eslek knows. They is bad mens, efendi.”

Eslek cut the air with his hand. “Too true, George. And I get the word that you was fitted up,” he added. “Valuable pitch, right? They made an offer.”

George rubbed his chest. “Those bastards,” he said quietly. “I works that market before they is born.”

“It was your father’s pitch,” Eslek pointed out.

“My grandfather had the farm,” George said. “Old Constantinedes lived nearby. He drink too much, beat his wife. So—my father helps his boys, brings them to the market. But they is bad boys who cheats peoples. My father says—we finds you new pitch. You cheats too many peoples, the peoples don’t come.”

George wiped his eyes with his massive thumb, and spat.

“When my father dies they says: George, it is finish for you now at market. Stay on farm, sell us your vegetables, and we sell to the peoples. But I think, no. These boys cheats the peoples. If I stops the market, why you not think they try to cheat me, too? Of course!”

“No one else asked you for money, then?”

“Money?” George looked surprised. “You asks rich man for money. Not the vegetable man.”

“And the men who attacked you. Did you recognize them?”

“No, efendi. I never sees them before in my whole life.”

Yashim and Eslek exchanged glances. “Leave it to me,” Eslek said. “And don’t worry. When you feel all right you can go back to your pitch. The Constantinedes brothers won’t be bothering you again.”

Y
ASHIM
paid a hurried visit to the hammam before crossing the Horn by caïque. It was still light when he arrived at the Polish residency. Palewski greeted him at the door.

“Come upstairs,” he said. “I thought of opening up the dining room, in your honor—but I’m afraid it’s a bit too far gone. The sitting room will be cozier.”

Yashim tried to imagine Palewski’s dining room. Holes in the plaster? Cobwebs? The windows obscured by creepers, perhaps, growing unchecked for years.

One of the little jobs that Xani had been going to undertake, no doubt.

He stopped on the stairs, one hand on the rail. “I think I’ve got Xani wrong,” he said.

Palewski turned.

“Wrong?”

Yashim nodded. “Just like the Hetira. I thought it was a protection racket, something like that. I thought it could have people murdered.”

They began to climb the stairs again.

“Why not? Look what happened to George. Look at the way they jumped you on the caïque that night.”

“George wasn’t done over by the Hetira. It was a turf war between him and another stallholder. Very vicious, and very unexpected. But not the Hetira. I learned that this afternoon.”

“But the caïque? And your apartment—remember that?”

“What do those events really amount to? Threats, yes. Unpleasant, certainly. But I’m still alive. So, for that matter, are you.”

Palewski pushed the door and they went into his sitting room. “The Hetira came after you for the book, but they didn’t kill Lefèvre. Is that what you’re saying?”

Yashim looked around. There was a small folding table set up in front of the empty grate. “They came after me—but I’m alive. Lefèvre was disemboweled. Just like Goulandris and the Jew.”

Palewski’s hands were on a yellow bottle.

“Tokay, Yashim. Wonderfully cold.”

He took a heavy crystal wineglass from the table and filled it. Yashim noticed the table was laid for three.

“Who else are you expecting?”

“An old friend of yours, Yash. Third permanent undersecretary to the secretary to the ambassador at the British embassy—something like that.”

“The British embassy?” Yashim frowned. “I don’t have any old friends there. The only person I know is that ridiculous boy, Compston.”

Palewski grinned. “George Compston. Highly ridiculous, as you say. But he happens to be a Byron fanatic. And if I’m not mistaken, that’s him arriving now.”

A few moments later they heard a heavy tread on the stairs, and Marta ushered in a stout young man with a shock of yellow hair and an open, cheery red face.

Compston’s infatuation with the life and legend of Lord Byron had begun on the ship that carried him to his first diplomatic posting in Istanbul. It was a six-week voyage, and Compston had kept close to his berth throughout. By the time the ship reeled into the Sea of Marmara he had not only read the epic poem
The Giaour
, but was able to pronounce its title, too; an indulgent relative had kept him supplied with
Don Juan
and
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
, and his adulation had advanced and ripened over the past two years. Nowadays he wore a cummerbund without reflection, and a pencil mustache, and tilted at the knee when talking to European ladies, to “make a leg.”

It was his friend and mentor at the embassy, Ben Fizerly, who first noticed his limp and later remarked, a little crushingly, that it seemed to travel uneasily from foot to foot; but few people meeting Compston for the first time, cummerbund or no cummerbund, would have readily associated the boy with the open red face and big soft hands with the saturnine poet whose untimely death all Europe had mourned.

Compston did not mind. He had reached that stage in a young man’s passion for an idea when all that he looked on conformed to it and confirmed it in his mind. A set of chestnut ringlets recalled Byronic locks; a sigh, Byronic looks; a friendly wave, a Byronic gesture. His letters home to his sister had become so full of Byronic paradox and risqué skits that she could hardly understand them anymore; and his speech was truffled with quotations from
Childe Harold
. Even Fizerly had declared that Compston was becoming quite a bore.

Over dinner—boiled beef, with a sorrel sauce—Yashim more than once found himself unwittingly echoing Fizerly’s opinion. It was not until Marta had cleared away the plates and set a decanter of port on the table that Palewski coughed and brought the Englishman to the theme in hand.

Compston put his fingers to his chin and talked in profile.

“Missilonghi, Excellency? The pride—and the shame of Greece.” He sighed. “The sultan had brought the armies of Egypt into Greece, as you’ll remember. They linked up with the Albanians, and Ibrahim Pasha drove the Greeks back into this forlorn spot, nothing but a marsh, really, running along the shore, and there, for a year, the banner of freedom fluttered above the wretched town, shattered by the Egyptian artillery, and cut off from all hope of aid.”

He poured himself a glass of port.

“I often try to imagine it. There’s a bit of coast where I’m from, Burnham Overy, with simply miles of dunes. Just imagine Burnham Overy with palm trees, and that’s Missilonghi. Hotter than Burnham Overy, of course. Otherwise the palm trees wouldn’t grow!”

“Quite so,” Palewski murmured.

“Of course we don’t get any Greeks in Norfolk, either. One or two in Norwich. I think you get a few Jews. A parcel of Greek fugitives—they’d cause quite a stir! Without doubt.”

He downed his glass and stared hard at the decanter.

Yashim coughed gently. “But Missilonghi, Mr. Compston.”

“Yes, of course. Missilonghi—there were thousands of Greek rebels there, men with their women and their children. Bit of a town. Too many tents. All protected by an earth bank. And every day they died, like Lord Byron himself. Cholera, hunger, Egyptian gunnery.” He squinted at his glass. “Not much like Burnham Overy at all, really,” he added.

“They couldn’t break out?”

“It’s like this, monsieur. In the first place, Ibrahim had them surrounded. In the second—well, the Greeks were divided among themselves, in spite of Lord Byron’s noble efforts to bring about a reconciliation. I happen to believe that’s what killed him—he was too generous with his energy and time, not to mention his money. Bringing the Suliotes up to scratch as soldiers. Trying to appease the rivalries between the factions.” Compston rubbed his eye with a finger. “The patience of that man! He knew what fools the Greeks were, but he never complained. Not to their very faces, at least. He died of a noble heart.”

Yashim cocked his head. “I heard he died of fever, and bad doctors.”

Compston looked aggrieved. “Well, that of course. We shouldn’t blame the doctors. Not really. I suppose they did their best,” he added bitterly.

Palewski harrumphed quietly. “More port, Mr. Compston.”

“Dr. Millingen attends the sultan now,” Yashim pointed out.

“Yes. But there were others.”

“I’d heard—Stephanitzes, perhaps? Dr. Lefèvre?’

“Lefèvre?” Compston frowned and shook his head. “Stephanitzes was the only Greek among ’em. Jenkins, Bruno.” Compston had forgotten his Byronic poses and was now leaning forward, frowning, like a small boy trying to remember his lesson. “And poor Meyer, too.”

“Poor Meyer?”

“Well, unfortunate. A Swiss. Byron said he had no manners. Banned him from coming to his house. Meyer edited a sort of journal.
Chronica Hellenica
, I think. He and Byron had differences about the paper.”

“And what happened to them all—after Byron’s death, I mean? At the end?”

“I’m sure you know, monsieur, how Missilonghi ended. They were down to gnawing hooves and bones, and they decided to break out. Two thousand rebels succeeded in pushing through the Turkish lines, and escaping to the hills. The others—I’m afraid they lost their nerve. Turned and fled back into Missilonghi. Ibrahim saw his chance. Unleashed his army. Albanians and Egyptians. Terrible, terrible times,” Compston murmured vaguely.

“But the doctors like Millingen, they got away?”

“Mostly. Millingen was captured a year later, by your lot. Spent a while in prison, then came on out here. Stephanitzes—I don’t know. Oh, Meyer didn’t make it, of course.”

“The unpopular Swiss?”

“That’s right. Not altogether unpopular, I should say,” Compston added, with a huge wink at the port. “According to Lord Byron’s letters, Meyer seduced a girl at Missilonghi.” He struck his knee. “Come to think of it, we had a case like that in Burnham Overy a few years ago. Caused a lot of bad blood, actually. Father fixed it up, in the end. Same way Byron did, once he’d got wind of the affair—I mean the one in Missilonghi; Byron never came to Burnham Overy. Meyer wanted to bluff it out, but Byron set the Suliotes on him. Blacked his eye, knocked out two of his teeth, and pretty much dragged him up the aisle. Quite right, too—Byron saw it as a question of morale.”

“So what happened to him?” Yashim asked.

“The chap in Burnham Overy?”

“Meyer.”

“Married the girl.”

“I mean afterward,” Yashim said, with infinite patience.

“Oh, I see what you’re after. No, he didn’t get out. Must have been included in the general massacre which followed the fall of the town.” Compston frowned and sat a little straighter. “A rather inglorious moment in your history, I’d say.”

“I don’t know that war ever reflects well on anyone. Except your friend Byron, of course.”

“Byron’s a special case, monsieur.” Compston took out a big lace handkerchief and blew his nose. “S’what genius means, I suppose.”

He sat, broad and glum, staring at the polished table. His eyelids fluttered and closed; and then, very slowly, he keeled forward, resting his forehead on the table and began to snore.

Palewski and Yashim regarded him in silence.

“I was about to offer coffee. Yashim?”

They took their coffee to the window seat, having turned Compston’s head so that his nose was not pressed flat against the mahogany. Outside it was dark, the distant sound of barking dogs mingling with the slow rumble of the English boy’s snores.

“Poor Byron!” the ambassador exclaimed. “One minute the chap had a headache—who wouldn’t with all those Greeks dunning him right, left, and center—and the next, dead. Bled and physicked by a pack of quacks. He didn’t stand a chance.”

“No. Perhaps it was deliberate?”

“Deliberate? No, no. Doctors spend their professional lives killing people. It’s what they do.”

“Even so,” Yashim said, “Millingen was at Missilonghi for the Greek cause. Byron’s death led on to Greek independence. It rallied the Europeans.”

“Deep, Yashim. I like it. Deep, improbable, but worth contemplating. You’re beginning to think like a Pole.”

Yashim gave a wan smile. “You think it’s ridiculous.”

“Not altogether. A fashionable Scottish doctor who accidentally let the greatest living English poet die on him. Not a calling card in Mayfair, is it? Millingen must have come here because there wasn’t a patient in Europe who’d have him. Byron’s reputation was legendary. But Millingen feels safe out here. You Ottomans—it’s what makes you so lovable—wouldn’t know Byron from a syringe. You told me that yourself.”

Yashim nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that,” he said. He took a sip of coffee. “We wouldn’t know Dr. Meyer either, for that matter, if he suddenly showed up in Istanbul.”

“Meyer?”

“The doctor Byron couldn’t abide. The man who didn’t get away.”

Palewski half turned his head. “As Compston says, Yashim, it was a massacre.”

“A massacre. Sometimes—in the confusion—people have a chance to escape.”

Palewski nodded. “True. They lie doggo in the water, breathing through a reed. Or play dead. Tumbled into a common grave, sneaking out when the devils are gone. That sort of thing.”

Yashim shrugged. “Meyer survives. Twelve years later, he comes to Istanbul.”

“Very well.”

“He has headaches. He consults a doctor—Millingen. Dr. Millingen would remember him.”

Palewski slowly closed his eyes. He shook his head. “Why consult a doctor if you are one?”

“I don’t know. But that’s exactly what Lefèvre did—he told us so.”

A look of pain slid across the ambassador’s face. He sank back against the shutter case.

“Yashim.”

“Dr. Meyer was the one with the interest in Greek archaeology. The one Byron disliked on sight.”

Palewski considered the ceiling.

“You disliked Lefèvre on sight yourself,” Yashim insisted. “And then there’s a coin trick they all learned from one another. Lefèvre did it. Millingen does it.”

Palewski whistled. “You think Meyer and Lefèvre were the same man?”

“One or two things I still don’t understand—but yes. It makes sense.”

“You can’t fault Lord Byron’s judgment, if that’s the case. But why? Why change his name and all that?”

“I don’t know yet,” Yashim confessed. “If I did, I’d have the answer to how he died.”

“Why show himself to Millingen?” Palewski asked. “The man who could still prove who he was?”

Yashim clasped his hands together. “Look at it this way. What was Lefèvre doing, in the days before he was killed?”

“Reading old books. Getting scared. What else?”

“Negotiating, that’s what Malakian thought. Lefèvre had something he could sell.”

“Or buy?”

Yashim shook his head. “Not so likely. After all, he had no money left.”

Palewski took a deep breath. “But he had nothing of value on him, either, except the little book. And it’s not worth all that much.”

“He didn’t necessarily possess what he was selling. Or not yet.”

“Very well. But why break his cover and go to see Millingen?” Palewski unfolded himself from the chair and went to the door.

“Marta! Brandy!”

He stood by the door, listening. Then he came back and flopped back into his chair.

“I said you were thinking like a Pole, Yashim, but don’t overdo it. Have one of these,” he added as Marta brought the tray into the room. “Thank you, Marta.”

Marta smiled and poured two glasses of brandy. When the door closed Yashim said: “The Hetira is a society devoted to the restoration of the Greek empire: that’s the Great Idea. But restoration means healing, too. Restoring to health.”