The Aviary Gate (48 page)

He took another paper from beneath Elizabeth's application file and read it carefully. ‘Well, I'm sorry to say,' when he looked up at last his eyes behind his spectacles were sorrowful, ‘I'm very sorry to
have to say that it doesn't look as though we can help you much this time either.'

‘Not at all? Surely there must be something?'

‘This note here is from one of my colleagues.' He held up a piece of paper that had been clipped on to Elizabeth's application form. ‘She says that there is an official record of the original presentation,' he ran his eye over the note, ‘but all it contains is an itemised list. Nothing much, in other words, although I'm sure we can arrange for you to examine it if you so wish. The organ, on the other hand, is no longer in existence. It seems that it was destroyed a long time ago.'

‘How long ago is a long time?'

‘A very long time,' he smiled. ‘In the time of Sultan Ahmet, Mehmet III's son. It seems that, unlike his father, Sultan Ahmet was a very religious man, and he believed that the organ given by the English Queen was – how do you say it? – it had images of human beings on it, which we do not allow in Islam—'

Elizabeth thought of the angels with their trumpets; the bush with the singing blackbirds. ‘Idolatrous?'

‘Yes, that's the word. Idolatrous.'

‘So it was destroyed?'

‘I'm afraid so. Not a trace remains of the merchants' gift.' He seemed genuinely disappointed not to have been able to help her.

‘I see.' Elizabeth stood up to go. ‘Thank you so much for your time.'

‘But there is something else, Miss Staveley.'

‘Yes?'

‘There was one thing that my colleague thought you might be interested to see.'

‘Oh?' Elizabeth turned back and saw that he was holding a small object in the palm of his hand. It was wrapped in a little bag made from faded red velvet. ‘What is it?'

‘It was found with some of the palace accounts relating to the English mission. No one is quite sure how it got there. But there is a definite date for it, apparently: 1599 in the European calendar.'

Elizabeth took the object from him. Through the faded velvet she could feel the solid weight of something metallic lying in the palm of her hand: a round and smooth object, the approximate shape of an old-fashioned pocket watch. With stiff fingers Elizabeth pulled the strings
of the bag open, tipping out its contents carefully into the palm of her hand. It was smaller than she had expected, and had the look of something very old. The brass case, delicately chased with flowers and leaves, gave off only the faintest glint, like tarnished sunlight.

‘Open it. My colleague believes it is some kind of astronomical instrument,' Ara Metin said.

With her thumb Elizabeth carefully eased the catch at the base. It opened as smoothly as if it had been newly minted to reveal its several component parts. She contemplated it in silence.

‘It's called a compendium,' she said softly.

‘So you've seen something like it before?' He sounded surprised.

‘Only in a picture. A portrait.'

For a few moments all she could do was marvel at its workmanship.

‘This is a quadrant.' With her forefinger she pointed to the back of the inner case. ‘This a magnetic compass. This an equinoctial sundial. On the back of the lid here – see these engravings? – is a table of latitudes of towns in Europe and the Levant.'

Elizabeth held the compendium up so that it was at eye-level. And sure enough, inside the bottom half of the two outer cases were two hinged lids, held together by tiny catches in the shape of a left and a right hand. ‘And at the bottom here, if I am not much mistaken …' she glanced across at him, ‘may I?'

He nodded, and she eased the catches gently to one side and opened the hidden compartment.

A miniature of a young woman with pale skin and dark eyes gazed out at her. Her hair was reddish gold, pearls hung at her neck and from the lobes of her ears. Over one of her shoulders was some kind of garment, a suggestion of fur in the tiny brush strokes; the other shoulder was bare, the skin snowy, almost blue in its whiteness. In her hand she held a single flower, a red carnation.

Celia?
It seemed to Elizabeth that the two of them seemed to stare at one another across the centuries.
Celia, is that you?
And then, just as suddenly, the moment was gone.

‘How extraordinary,' Ara Metin was saying at her side, ‘did you know this portrait was there?'

Elizabeth shook her head. Four hundred years, was all she could think, four hundred years in the dark.

‘Would you mind very much if I used your computer for a moment?' She indicated the laptop on the desk.

‘Well …'

For a moment he looked doubtful, but Elizabeth was insistent. ‘Please. It won't take long.'

‘Well, really it's the Director's computer, and I'm not sure …'

‘Does it have an Internet connection?'

‘Yes, we have wireless here, of course …'

But Elizabeth was already logging on to her email. Her in-box showed that there was one new message, together with an attachment.

Oh Dr Alis! Bless you! Without stopping to read her supervisor's message, she clicked straight on to the attachment, and this time the portrait of Paul Pindar came up immediately on to the screen.

‘That's it, look,' Elizabeth pointed to the screen, ‘can you see what he's holding?'

‘Why, it looks just like it – the same object.' He peered over her shoulder.

‘It doesn't just look the same – it
is
the same!' Elizabeth said joyfully. ‘The question is, what on earth's it doing here? Could it have been one of the embassy gifts to the Sultan?'

‘No,' he shook his head. ‘If it were, it would have been listed along with the other gifts, of that I'm absolutely sure. Who was this man anyway?'

‘A merchant. His name was Paul Pindar, and he was secretary to the same Levant Company embassy who presented the organ to the Sultan. I believe that this compendium once belonged to him. Look, there's an inscription here that I couldn't read when I looked at the portrait before. It's in Latin.' She read it out. ‘
Ubi iaces dimidium, iacet pectoris mei
.'

‘Can you translate it?'

‘I think so, yes.' For a few moments, Elizabeth stared at the words on the screen. ‘In English it's something like: where my other half lies, there lies my heart.'

‘What does it mean?'

‘I'm not sure,' she said slowly. ‘Unless –' she picked up the compendium and scrutinised the miniature again. ‘Yes, that's it, look!' Holding the miniature up to the image on the screen, she
was laughing suddenly. ‘I can't believe I couldn't see it before. They're a pair!'

‘Do you really think so?' He looked sceptical.

‘Yes: look at the way they are positioned. She is facing to the right, holding a carnation in her left hand. He is facing to the left, holding the compendium in his right hand. I couldn't see it before because the reproduction was so bad, but the portrait of Pindar must be a miniature, too. No wonder it was so grainy. It must have been enlarged several times over to fit on to a square page.' Her mind was racing. ‘Could they be betrothal portraits, do you think?'

‘Is there anything to indicate the date the portraits were painted?'

‘You're right, there should be a date on here somewhere, I remember Dr Alis mentioning it.' Elizabeth sat down at the computer again. ‘Can I zoom in on this? Ah, yes, there it is.' An enlarged image of the inscription came up on the screen. Elizabeth's face fell. ‘But that's impossible!'

In a faint but unequivocal hand the numerals 1601 came into view.

Ara Metin was the first to speak.

‘Well, maybe they're not betrothal portraits after all,' he shrugged. ‘The portrait of the woman must date from sometime before 1599. So this one of your merchant,' he indicated the screen, ‘was painted at least a year after it, possibly more.'

‘But how can that be?' Elizabeth picked up the old velvet pouch that the compendium had been kept in, fingering the faded nap. ‘You say that this has been here since 1599, and yet he's holding it in his hand in 1601 …' Her voice tailed off. ‘Well in that case it can't be the same compendium, can it? I wonder how much I can enlarge this …' She shifted the focus of the zoom on to the instrument itself. ‘Look.' She pointed at the hidden compartment. ‘Blown up like this you can see the hidden compartment quite clearly. And, see, there's no miniature inside it. No portrait. It seems I've been quite wrong about all this all along. Quite wrong.' She pushed the chair back from the table and stood up.

‘Miss Staveley, are you all right?'

Ara Metin, still hovering at Elizabeth's shoulder, saw that she had turned pale.

‘Yes.'

‘You look rather faint. Sit down again, please.' He put his hand under her elbow.

‘No. Thank you.'

‘A glass of water then?'

Elizabeth did not seem to hear him. ‘
Where my other half lies, there lies my heart
,' she said the words out loud. ‘Don't you see? It's very simple: in fact, it means exactly what it says.' She looked at him. ‘It's a kind of game; a riddle if you like. This
is
the other half – but not only of the two portraits. I think it means that she was his other half.' She looked down at the portrait of the girl, at her calm eyes, her porcelain skin. ‘The other half of his heart, his soul. And she lies
here
. Literally, here in this palace.'

So he had known, she thought, he knew all along that she was here. Had Paul Pindar, like Thomas Dallam, somehow been able to look through the grille in the wall and see her? Elizabeth felt a shiver run down her spine. And what of Celia? All this time she had been imagining her laughing, running and running towards him, across the deserted courtyard. But clearly it had not been like that after all. He knew, and he left her here.

‘But I really don't see that you can know for sure …' Ara Metin was saying.

‘But I think I do,' Elizabeth said with conviction. ‘All this time I've been guessing. Guessing and feeling my way along. There was nothing else to go on. But this time I do have evidence.' She gave him a pale smile. ‘Look here,' she pointed again to the painted compendium in the portrait, at the bottom half where the miniature of Celia should have been, ‘there's no miniature in this one, because he wasn't painted with
this
compendium, because somehow the original had ended up here in the palace – I don't suppose we'll ever know exactly how or why. But there
is
something in its place.'

‘I can't see anything, just some engravings on the metal case.' Ara Metin peered over her shoulder at the screen. ‘It looks like some kind of fish, or an eel perhaps?'

‘The Elizabethans called them lampreys,' she was cradling the brass compendium against her breast, holding the miniature very close to her in the cup of her hand, ‘and this is Celia Lamprey, the girl I was telling you about.' To Ara Metin's consternation he saw that Elizabeth was weeping silently. ‘The portrait is not a betrothal painting at all. It's a memorial. A memorial to someone who was already dead.'

‘Celia!'

‘Annetta!'

‘You're back!'

In the Courtyard of the Valide, Annetta put her arms around her friend, hugging her roughly.

‘Why, what's wrong? What is this – you're trembling,' Celia laughed.

‘I thought … when she sent for you like that … oh, never mind what I thought!' Annetta hugged her again, more fiercely this time. ‘What did she say? Why did she want you? I can't believe she …' she peered into Celia's face, put her hand tenderly up to her cheek, ‘but, no, here you are, still flesh and blood. You must tell me everything,' she looked around her quickly, ‘but not here, come on.'

Annetta pulled Celia into her old apartment. She saw at once that it was empty. Celia's things, her clothes and her few possessions, had been removed. The room already had an expectant feel to it, as though it were already waiting to receive the next occupant.

‘So you've already been moved? Where to?'

‘I don't know …' looking around the empty room Celia seemed momentarily nonplussed, ‘they haven't told me anything yet.' Quickly she ran across to the niche above the bed and put her hand inside it. ‘Well, at least they didn't find these.' From the hiding place in the wall she took the Haseki's bracelet and another object, something small which she concealed in the palm of her hand.

‘Well, I don't think I'll be needing this again.' With one last look Celia flung the bracelet with its tiny little blue and white glass eyes back into the niche again. ‘I should have listened to you all along. You were right about Gulay. That time in the Great Chamber when she threw that bracelet at me, I should have realised that she wasn't throwing it at me at all. She meant to hit Cariye Lala – it was a sort of clue, I suppose. She wanted me to start asking questions about her, to stir things up – flush her out, is how she put it – and expose the Valide that way. It was all like a sort of game to her,' Celia said, ‘a game of chess.'

‘Oh, she was clever, I'll grant you that. Almost a match for the Valide,' Annetta said, ‘but not quite.'

Annetta followed Celia's gaze as she looked round at the apartment for the last time. She did not seem either sad or anxious, but rather mysteriously buoyed up, elated almost, by some secret knowledge.

‘It's so quiet, don't you think?' Celia went to the doorway and looked out. She gave a little shiver. ‘Do you remember the last time we were in here together?' she laughed. ‘That time when Esperanza Malchi gave us such a fright?'