The Janissary Tree (44 page)

As
for him, there was only one direction he could take.

For
many years after that, an Armenian army contractor who married a rich widow who
bore him six sons would tell the story of how he was almost crushed by an
officer who fell on him from the sky.

"Not
a common soldier, mind you," he would end his story, with a smile. "God, in his
Grace, sent me a general: and I've been dealing with them ever since."

128

***********

"I
need an escort, Palewski," Yashim was explaining. "You know, somebody with an
in with the sultan. He'd expect that. And you two are very pally, aren't you?"

It
was Saturday morning. The rain that lashed against Yashim's windows had been
falling steadily since before dawn, much to the advantage of the New Guards
struggling to extinguish the city fires. With the breaks their cannon had opened
in the night, the fire had been contained to the area of the port, and although
the damage was said to be serious, it did not approach the scale of 1817, or
1807, or of almost a dozen major fires that had broken out in that district in
the previous century. And the port, when all was said and done, was not the
most prized Istanbul quarter.

Palewski
put up two fingers and touched his mustache, to hide a smile.

"Pally's
the word for it, Yash. I've a mind to present the sultan with a little
something that arrived for me this morning, saved by providence from the fire
in the port."

"Ali,
providence," echoed Yashim.

"Yes.
I happened to notice that stocks were getting rather low last Thursday, so I
ordered another couple of cases out of bond immediately. What do you think?"

"Yes,
I think that the sultan would appreciate the gesture. Not that he'd drink it,
of course."

"Of
course not. No bubbles in it, for one thing."

They
smiled at each other.

"I'm
sorry about the thug last night," Palewski said.

Yashim
yawned, shaking his head.

"I
don't know what you hit him with. He was gentle as a lamb when I got back. Preen
and her friend were chatting away with him, you can't believe. Not that he said
much, naturally, but he seemed to be enjoying their company. Preen said she
could take him to a doctor. I think she said a horse doctor, but there you are.
He seemed very grateful when I explained it to him."

"In
mime?"

"In
sign. It's a language I learned when I was at court."

"I
see." Palewski frowned. "I didn't hit him, you know."

"I
know. I'm glad. Will you call for me at six?"

129

***********

YASHIM
slept deeply until one o'clock, then dozed for another hour, sliding in and out
of dreams where he heard only voices speaking to him in tones he knew and
languages he didn't understand. Once he saw the seraskier, talking perfect
French with a light Creole accent, and lashed himself awake. Was it a dream
that the seraskier had spoken to him in the language of his dreams?
A
condition of the mind.
The phrase rolled around his head, and he sat up,
feeling light-headed.

He
got up, leaving his cloak on the divan. The room felt warm, the stove was lit:
his landlady must have crept up to light it while he was asleep. He picked up
the kettle and settled it onto the coals. He took three pinches of black tea
and dropped them into the pot. He found a pan by the stove with a few
manti
inside: Preen seemed to have cooked his supper and eaten it with her friend;
and the mute, too, maybe. They'd saved something for him.

He
set it on the stove and watched the butter melt, then stirred the
manti
with a wooden spoon. He thought of making a tomato sauce with the jar of puree,
then decided that the
manti
were ready and he was too hungry, so he
simply tipped them onto a plate and ground a few rounds of black pepper over
them.

They
were not excellent, he had to admit; slightly hard around the edges, in fact,
but wonderfully good. He poured the tea and drank it with sugar and a cigarette
leaning back on the divan and watching the raindrops sparkling on the lattice:
the rain had stopped, and a weak wintry sunlight was making a last appearance
before it faded for the night.

Palewski
had been almost right, he thought. A dangerous party: always a guest, never a
player. Only obliged to stand by, confused and helpless, as the old, grand
battle raged, a battle that would never be won between the old and the new,
reaction and renovation, memory and hope. Coming in too late, when last night's
manti
were already curling at the edges. Until he spoke to the
bombardier, who swung the guns in time.

After
a time he began to look around the room, not stirring but glancing from one
object to the next before he saw what he wanted. He reached out and took it in
his hand, half smiling: a little cloisonne dagger with no pommel, only its
beautifully enameled hilt and scabbard making a single crescent, tapering to a
fine point. He slid the dagger halfway out and admired the gleam of its perfect
steel, then pushed it back, hearing the tiny click as it settled into the
scabbard again.

Damascus
steel, cold drawn, the product of a thousand years' experience--and the finer it
was worked, the less it showed the labor. It was not as they crafted such
things now. He wondered if she'd know the difference, not that it mattered. It
was a beautiful and satisfying thing. Dangerous, but protective, too. Perhaps
she'd look at it now and then, and in her white northern world of ice it would
bring back some memory to make her smile.

For
several minutes he weighed the dagger in his palm, thinking of it, and then he
frowned and set it gently aside and got up and washed in the basin as best he
could.

130

***********

"We
have orders to admit no one until the disturbance has subsided," the butler
intoned, placing his large body in the doorway of the embassy.

"There
is no disturbance," Yashim said. The butler merely pursed his lips.

Yashim
sighed and held out a small package. "Would you see to it that this reaches Her
Excellency the Princess?"

The
butler glanced down and sniffed. "And from whom shall I say it comes?"

"Oh--just
say a Turk."

"Yashim!"

Eugenia
was coming slowly down the stairs, one hand floating by the rail and the other
at her cheek.

"Come
in!"

The
butler stepped back and Eugenia took Yashim's hands in hers and led him to the
sofa. The butler hovered over her.

"That's
all right," she said. "We're friends."

"From
the gentleman, Your Highness."

The
butler handed her Yashim's packet and stood back.

"Tea
for our visitor, please," Eugenia said. When the butler had gone she dropped
the packet on her lap, took hold of Yashim's hands again, and looked him
steadily in the eye.

"I
think--we are going home." She flashed a sudden smile and squeezed his hands. "Derentsov--my
husband--is furious. And frightened. He thinks he's been betrayed."

Yashim
nodded slowly.

"You
know who it was, don't you?" Eugenia tilted her head back and appraised him
with a slow smile. "They all think that you don't matter. But you are clever."

Yashim
glanced away. "Do you want to know?" he asked her quietly.

She
shook her head. "It would spoil everything. I have a duty to my husband, and
there are some secrets I can't keep. He was raving this morning, saying he'd
been compromised. No choice but to resign. Determined to return us to St.
Petersburg and face the czar."

"And
the balls, and the dinners, and the ladies with their fans. I know."

"It
will be hard."

"But
you have a duty to your husband."

They
laughed softly together.

"What
is this?" she said, hefting the packet in her hand.

"Open
it and see."

She
did, and he showed her the tiny catch that slipped the dagger from its
scabbard.

"It
reminds me of something," she said mischievously. "And someone."

Their
eyes met, and the mischievous look disappeared.

"I
don't think--"

"That
we'll meet again? No. But--I will always dream. Of you."

"If
I told the ladies of St. Petersburg--"

"Don't
say a word."

Eugenia
shook her lovely head. "I won't," she said. "I never would."

She
leaned forward, tilting her head slightly to one side so that a lock of her
black hair swung free.

"Kiss
me," she said.

They
kissed.

Russian
or otherwise, a butler is a butler. He is unflappable. He is discreet.

Yashim
had gone before he served the tea.

131

***********

"So
it seems that the seraskier was right," said Mahmut II. "It's good that we had
him in the city. But what a terrible accident, just when everything was going
so well."

"Yes,
Sultan."

"They
say he fell. I suppose he'd climbed up somewhere for a better view. Fires to
fight, and all that, eh?"

"Yes,
Sultan."

"We'll
give him a splendid funeral, don't worry about that. You two got along pretty
well, didn't you?"

Yashim
inclined his head.

"Something
new, he'd have liked that. Gun carriages, maybe, and a few platoons of Guards
firing volleys over his grave. Show that the sultan doesn't forget his friends.
We might even name the fire tower at Beyazit after him. Ugly object. Seraskiers
Tower. Hmm. The empire honors its heroes, you know."

The
sultan picked at his nose.

"I
never liked him much. That's the worst I can say of him. At least he knew his
duty."

Yashim
kept his eyes fixed on the ground.

The
sultan looked at him with narrowed eyes.

"My
mother says that you did a great deal to prepare her for the ordeal she passed
through last night. It seems to me you did very little."

He
snuffed. Yashim looked up and caught his eye.

The
sultan blinked and looked away.

"Hrrmph.
I suppose it was enough in the end. And frankly, the eunuchs are perfectly
quiet now. Takes one to catch one, I imagine."

He
picked up a little whisk and began to twirl it between his fingers.

"The
point is, I need someone in here, since the kislar's gone. Someone who knows
the ropes, but a bit younger."

Yashim
froze. It was the second job he'd been offered in the last twenty-four hours. The
eyes and ears of the new republic? Now it was power and the promise of riches. The
second job he didn't want.

He
began to say that he wasn't young. He was white. Whiteish, anyway--but the
sultan wasn't listening.

"There's
an archivist," he said. "New man. Keen, good-looking, it'd frighten some of the
old men, wouldn't it? I can't replace them all. And I could keep an eye on him,
too. Reminds me of the kislar when he was young, before he started spooning up
this tradition stuff and murdering the girls. He wasn't in on the whole
charade, either. That's what I like. Give him a frock coat and a baton. That's
it. My man."

Yashim
felt a flood of relief. He had no doubt that Ibou would prove to be a perfect
kislar agha; a little young, perhaps, but time would offer its inevitable
solution. At least he would vault straight over all the terrible compromises
and feuds that had driven the former incumbent to the verge of madness as he
clambered his way to the top. And he would be quick to learn his duty. Maybe
even genuinely grateful.

"The
sultan is most wise," he said. It was better not to say more.

"Well,
well." The sultan rose from his chair. "This has been a most interesting
discussion. To be honest, Yashim, I sometimes think you know more than you say.
Which may be wise in its way, too. It is for God to know everything, and for us
to learn only what we need."

He
scrabbled shortsightedly at the little table and picked up a leather purse.

"Take
this. The seraskier would no doubt have rewarded you, and in the circumstances
the task is left to me."

Yashim
caught the purse in midair.

He
bowed. The sultan nodded shortly.

"The
valide wants a gossip, I understand. There was an edict," he added, "but it
will have to wait after all. We'll see the household settled before that. And
the city, too."

He
waved a hand, and Yashim bowed as he withdrew.