Cybele's Secret (10 page)

I didn’t go back to Irene’s library that morning or for several days after. We were busy buying and selling. I had plenty of opportunity to assist my father, and word soon went around the trading quarter that I was almost as tough to deal with as he was. It was good to feel genuinely useful. But the mystery I had stumbled into at the library was never far from my thoughts. A restless urge to find answers disturbed my sleep.

There was something I needed to do before I returned to Irene’s. I broached the subject one evening over supper. Stoyan had set out our meal on the little table: a platter of flat bread, a bowl of onion and cucumber chopped together, dark olives, and a paste of peas ground up with garlic. Father and I took the two chairs while Stoyan leaned against the wall nearby. He said he was more comfortable that way; the furniture had been made for folk of far smaller build.

“Father, I have a favor to ask.”

“Mmm?”

“I’d like to go to Irene’s library again soon. I may be able to find useful information there, something about Cybele that may help us with our purchase. I want to visit her hamam, too, but I need new clothes. The gowns I’ve brought from home aren’t suitable for Istanbul. It was embarrassing that Irene needed to give me things to change into. Could we go to the public market so I can buy fabrics? Maria said she’d help me with the sewing.”

Father glanced at Stoyan.

“Few women venture into the
çar
i,”
Stoyan said. “You would attract much attention, kyria.”

“Why don’t you give Stoyan a list?” asked Father, scooping up ground peas with a chunk of bread.

I suppressed a sigh.

“I think Kyria Paula wishes to view the goods in person, Master Teodor.” It seemed Stoyan had understood my thoughts perfectly.

“I’d be disappointed if I came all the way to Istanbul and didn’t visit the covered markets, Father,” I said. “And didn’t you say you’d need Stoyan for a few days while you try to track down the other prospective purchasers for Cybele’s Gift?” I had passed on the gossip about the Sheikh-ul-Islam and the secret cult, as well as giving him a much-edited version of my conversation with Duarte Aguiar. That had done nothing to deter him from pursuing his round of visits. “If I’m with Maria sewing, I’ll be out of trouble while the two of you are away.”

Father smiled. “Since you put the arguments so convincingly, I can only capitulate. We’ll all go. The çar
i is a hive of activity. If we ask the right questions, there may be good information to be had.”

The next morning we walked through the Galata mahalle down to the waterfront. Here the Golden Horn was fringed by little coffee shops and resting areas. We descended a flight of steps to a rickety wooden jetty crammed with people. Stoyan conducted a rapid, intense conversation in Turkish with an official in a green turban. Once the price was agreed, this man used his silver-tipped staff to indicate a small caïque tied up amongst an assortment of larger craft. Vessels were arriving and leaving all the time, accompanied by shouting and near collisions. Similar jetties projected into the water for some distance along the bank. At this early hour, all were bustling. Both men and women were being ferried. The bigger craft had separate sections at the rear for female passengers.

I was wearing a plain gown in a good light wool dyed blue, and over my head a white scarf. Father looked distinguished in his merchant’s robe of deep red, with a flat velvet cap to match. Folk did glance at us; if our foreignness did not ensure that, Stoyan’s height and broad shoulders surely did. But there were people of all kinds getting on and off the boats, and the looks did not linger on us. Stoyan helped me aboard the rocking caïque, and I sat in the stern. Father settled beside me, with Stoyan farther forward.

The boatman edged us out through the chaotic tangle of vessels, and we headed across the water. He used the single set of oars to propel the caïque on a swift, bobbing course amidst the heavy traffic of the Golden Horn. The water sparkled around us. Sails of red and brown and cream passed like exotic butterflies. Looking backward and upstream, I glimpsed the
Stea de Mare
moored at the merchant docks and, beyond her, the taller form of the
Esperança.
On either side of the waterway, the towers of Istanbul rose tall against a perfect blue sky.

Halfway across, a huge, high-powered caïque passed us at speed, manned by a crew of eighteen oarsmen in red and white uniforms. In the stern, under a tasseled canopy, sat a grand personage clad in gold-encrusted robes. The wake nearly swamped us. I clutched the seat, imagining what it would be like trying to swim in such a congested channel. I met Stoyan’s eye and forced a smile.

“We are safe, kyria,” he said quietly. “This man is expert.”

“Mmm,” I murmured. It seemed important not to show how troubled I was by the shallow draft and rocking movement of the caïque. After all, I was the one who had requested this outing.

“You do not swim?” Stoyan asked conversationally.

“I can keep afloat,” I said. “But I’d rather not put my skills to the test clad in a woolen gown and boots.”

Father made a comment, but I didn’t catch it. In the back of a larger boat traveling near us sat several women robed in black. That in itself was nothing unusual; most of the female passengers I had seen from the dock were dressed the same way. But one of these travelers was staring straight back at me. A piece of ragged embroidery drooped limply from her hands like a small dead creature. I thought I could see a second girl on the cloth. Next to the black-haired dancer was a thin one with a cloud of curly brown hair and a frog balanced on her shoulder. My sister Jena. I shivered. What was this all about?

“Paula?”

My father sounded perplexed. I turned my attention to him.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought I saw someone I knew, but I must have been mistaken.” And, indeed, when I looked back at the bigger ferry, I could no longer distinguish one woman from another. Anyway, how could I possibly have seen the details on her handiwork at such a distance? My imagination was playing tricks again. I applied my thoughts to what shade of fabric I would buy.

The çar
i was a warren of narrow alleys roofed with a series of domes supported by pillars. Here and there, openings in this roof admitted thin shafts of daylight.

“It’s so dark,” I muttered as we headed into a tiny street crowded with people. “Why aren’t there more lamps?”

“Fire,” said Father. “This place is full of hides and fabrics and papers. A single careless moment could send the whole mahalle up like a torch.”

The streets were lined with small shops, each with its owner seated on a bench outside. There was a street for kerchiefs and embroidered goods, Father explained, and one for coppersmiths, and another for leatherworkers, and so on. I wondered where the booksellers were, the ones Duarte had mentioned. The place seemed to go on forever. I could smell spices and roasting lamb and freshly ground coffee. Now that I was out of the caïque, I was keen to start shopping.

“If we can find a street of fabric sellers,” I said, “I’ll make my purchases straightaway. And, if you don’t mind, Father, I want to do the bargaining by myself.”

“Would I interfere?” Father was smiling. “Just make sure you stay in sight. The place is a maze, and it’s easy to lose one another in this gloom. Stoyan, will you go to the paper merchant’s establishment for me? He should have my order already bundled up; the price has been agreed in advance. By the time you come back to us, my daughter may have brought her business to a conclusion.”

For a little while, we could see Stoyan’s dark head as he moved away through the crowd; then he was gone.

We worked our way down the cloth merchants’ street. Father stood quietly observing the passing crowd, leaving me to exercise my halting Turkish. I was determined not to ask him for help. I drank a lot of tea and made a lot of polite inquiries as to the health of the merchants’ families. Those steps were necessary before the vendors would allow me to inspect their wares: rolls of linen and wool, lengths of fine gauze, muslin for turbans. There was delicate tissue for veils and thick felt for winter cloaks and caps.

At the third shop, I saw some linen I liked, but the price was exorbitant and I could not seem to bargain it down. The man waved his hands, speaking too quickly for me to follow.

“Red linen—too expensive,” I told him, hoping my Turkish was not as bad as his lack of understanding seemed to indicate. “I go elsewhere. Good day to you.”

We moved on. As each merchant in turn inflated his prices to ridiculous heights and refused to bargain the way he would with a male customer, it became plain to me that none of them considered me a serious purchaser. I suspected their best wares were not even being brought to the front of the shop. Father was busy talking to people in the street; everyone seemed to know him. I could hardly blame him for not helping me when I had insisted on doing this on my own.

I became more and more frustrated. I found myself wishing Stoyan would come back so I could ask him to stand beside me and look threatening. I was determined not to leave empty-handed; that was to admit defeat.

I was in a little shop with a narrow doorway to a shadowy inner room. I could see rolls of silk in there: a lovely plum red and a very good mossy green. To judge the quality, I’d need to run the cloth through my fingers and inspect the weave in adequate light.

“Those silks—bring here,” I said, pointing. “If you please.”

Farther down the street, Father had halted to greet two merchants whose style of dress suggested they were Neapolitan. Their wives were with them, in modest gowns and veils.

The vendor was saying I would not be interested in those silks. He waved his hands, telling me he would send his boy to fetch others from storage.

“No! No send boy.” I adopted a more forceful approach, frowning and gesturing. “Those silks. Bring here, I look!”

The vendor shuffled his feet and mumbled at me, not meeting my eye. I was about to say something exceedingly impolite when a familiar voice spoke from behind me in Greek.

“May I assist?”

I turned. A tall, dashing figure stood there, clad in Turkish style in a red dolman and a wide sashlike belt over loose white shirt and trousers. A pair of dark eyes regarded me quizzically down an aristocratic, high-bridged nose. He was still wearing my scarf.

“You are too polite,” said Duarte. “You must stamp your foot, shriek with fury, and threaten to put him out of business.”

“I’m a grown woman, not a spoiled child,” I retorted, my annoyance fueled by frustration. “I do not require your assistance.”

The pirate grinned. His aquiline features took on a conspiratorial look. “We are friends, are we not, Mistress Paula? And I owe you a favor.” His fingers went up to touch the scarf. “Let me help, please.”

Without waiting for a reply, he addressed himself to the cloth vendor in fluent Turkish. I did not catch all of it, but he seemed to be saying that I was the daughter of an unbelievably powerful man and a personal friend of Duarte himself and that I needed to see everything in the shop right now or a terrible, unspecified pestilence would descend on the vendor and all his family. Then, less dramatically, that the trader could count himself fortunate that I had not yet spread word throughout the çar
i that he had insulted a lady.