The Necromancer's Grimoire (16 page)

Nadira spread her hands in her lap, “
Azam
, I am far removed from my father's house. In the years since my birth in the great city of Marrakech, I have been witness to many wonders as well as many unfortunate accidents of fate.”

She touched the vizier with a filament. He was uncomfortable with her new status, and that she had been in the company of the European foreigners. She touched the
agha
. He was bored and annoyed that he had been required to attend. The book meant nothing to him. The necromancer had closed off all touch. He smiled at her knowingly. She withdrew her tendrils.

“It has come to my attention,” the vizier drew a small scroll from his belt, “That you had an audience with the leader of the Christians in Rome and read this book.”

Nadira nodded. “I spoke with him. I read for him.”

The astonishment in the vizier's eyes was not masked. “You spoke with him…”

“Yes.”

The vizier turned to the
agha
and the necromancer. “Do you have a question for this woman?” he asked them as he unrolled the scroll.

The
agha
cleared his throat. “
Sultana
. The Padishah has told me you are a great scholar and scribe. Perhaps he wishes you to teach poetry and calligraphy in the harem?”

The vizier raised his head from his document. “Is that all?” he asked. “A teacher?”

The necromancer stood and both ministers raised their eyes to look up at him. “No. She is not to teach in the harem. She is not a poet. This book is not a book of poetry.”

Nadira kept her eyes in her lap and increased the energy she was sending to her shield.

The necromancer continued silently for her ears only
. I know you are a sorceress.

The vizier put down his scroll. “It is possible the Padishah would have her as ambassador to the
frenki
. She speaks the languages.”

“We have many
men
who speak the languages of the foreigners,” the
agha
countered. “It must be something else.”

“I am afraid the great and wise Bayezid has not made clear what he hopes to accomplish with you,
Sultana
.” The vizier read the sultan's words from the scroll, “'Speak to her of her family and of her journeys in
frenki
lands. Ask her why she has come to the Great City and what favors she intends to ask. Ask her who she has brought with her and why.'”

The vizier looked at her. “Sultana? And do you not bring a gift? It says here that you possess a great gift. Is it this book?”

The necromancer laughed aloud. “It is not what you think,
Azam
. Return the book to them. It is not something we want, it is filled with heresies, and it is the property of the
frenki
nobleman.” Nadira met his eyes. “
Sultana
,” the necromancer's use of the honorific held only biting sarcasm and an almost insulting twist. “Tell them of your ‘journeys'.”

Nadira raised both her hands and slapped golden tendrils into the hearts of the Padishah's ministers. She froze them there while she locked eyes with the necromancer. “They will not remember what I say to you at this time,
Munajim-bashi
,” she told him in a soft voice. “But you shall remember. These men have much to fear from you.”

“And they do.”

“You shall not have me.”

He gave her a nasty smile. “You are puffed with the confidence of youth and the arrogance of your new abilities. But you have no idea of mine.”

“I think you will be unpleasantly surprised,” she glared at him.

“You think the
Hermetica
has made you invincible. It is but a primer. Your confidence is laughable.”

He tipped his staff at her and spilled the red sinews from the bull's head in a stream that flowed in waves that sparked the air between them. Nadira strengthened her shield before it reached her.

She felt his presence before her ears heard the shattering glass that was the sound of her shield disintegrating. He felt hot, like the steaming kettles that boiled the water for the laundry. He opened her mind like she had opened Kemal's, but quicker and with ease. Like the
reis
, she threw out defenses, she put up a fence, then a wall, then brass cannon the size of houses. She heard the necromancer's amusement as the sinews of red light snaked through her heart, searching, unimpeded by her attempts to stop him. She swept through her mind for a larger weapon. He had her in a vice, squeezed her harder and harder, waiting for what he wanted to pop from her like one squeezes a lemon for the juice. She seized up her limbs with the effort of resisting him, imagined herself a lioness all tooth and claw. She kicked and screamed and ripped at him with her talons and when he began to twist her open, in desperation she threw Montrose at him.

Whirling steel blades sliced through the necromancer and he drew back, releasing her. The freedom from his grip caused her body to fall forward on the carpet, gasping.

“Unexpected,” he said. “Who is this?” She looked up from the ground and saw him looking outward, casting for the source of the blades.

“No,” she breathed, “I am here. I am the one who slashed at you.”

He shifted his eyes to her. “No one can lie to me, Nadira the Reader. You feel like the smooth coolness of glass and the soft fur of a cat, but those sharp cuts were not from your claws. This other…” his eyes unfocused again. Nadira threw a skein of thread at him. He looked at her again and laughed. “Feeble. Not even a good effort. I saw him. This other feels like oak and fire. He tastes like smoke and salt and leather. You did not slash at me. Who is he?”

Nadira felt a thick muscular band of red light enter her heart and rip it apart looking for Montrose. She squeezed her eyes shut and grabbed at it with both hands, pulling it, twisting it, blocking its progress. He was so strong. None had resisted him for decades. He had total freedom to do as he pleased with every person he encountered. His success had weakened him in a way that continued conflict would have strengthened him, and yet she was not his match.

It could all be over right now. She felt him agreeing with her. Her heart broke open with an audible crack and he poured himself inside her exactly as she had penetrated Kemal.

She felt her mind pushed aside with a strong hand as he coursed through her, every corner of her mind was searched. She saw remembered images of her mother smiling and frowning. She saw the gardens of her youth and hours of toil in the kitchens and laundry of her master's house. The necromancer dragged her through long hours of study with her master, learning the perverse Hebrew letters that defied her at first, and then slowly opened her mind to their wonders.

She remembered how her master brought in a scholar from Damascus who showed her the numbers from India and how to use them to add and subtract, multiply and divide. She was swept through the Greek sea captain's lessons in his language, the miserable attempt to decipher hundreds of French verbs and her master's frustration with her. She saw her master toss that language away and hire a Frenchman to read his Frankish correspondence.

She felt the necromancer's reluctant admiration for her literacy. He knew Greek, Persian, Arabic and Turkish. He touched her English with curiosity, he felt her Hebrew with astonishment. He reached deeper.

She tensed, trying to stop further progress, but he opened her as easily as a man puts two thumbs in an orange and breaks it in half. He read her travels through Andorra and her encounters with Monsieur Conti and DiMarco. He saw the French army, he saw her escape. He saw her raise her hands and burst the heart of the French soldier. He stopped there and she felt his admiration for a brief moment. She felt he knew he was missing something and pressed her harder.

She thought about sherbet and honey. She thought about cool mountain streams and the bright dawn over tall mountains. She thought about lilting music and graceful dancing. The images were swept away with a stroke of his staff. He reached for her heart and pried it open wider. The glitter of steel and the feel of leather emerged slowly from its depths, pulled up as one lifts a heavy bucket of water from a deep well.

“What do you hide in this well, little one?”

With a desperate cry, she called for the priestess to help her. What felt like a cold splash of water knocked her down. When she opened her eyes she saw the necromancer above her with a hand to his face.

“I do not come to you alone,” she told him.

“Yes,” he said to her with disgust. “I know her.” He turned around and walked back to the vizier and the
agha
, ascending the steps to the platform they sat upon and taking his place between them. “She is a weak woman, hiding in her hole.”

Nadira righted herself, hand to her throat. “Weak, indeed, Farshad,” she said. “She has put you away from my heart.”

“For now.” The necromancer looked defiant with his glare, but she saw the uncertainty in his eyes. He had not seen her friends. The priestess had sheltered them from him. She felt the priestess' voice inside her, “For now,” the older woman said.

“For now,” Nadira repeated, understanding.

The vizier and the
agha
came to life. The vizier lowered the scroll. “His gracious majesty invites you to stay in the harem…” He stopped and stared at her. Nadira saw shock and confusion in his face. She put a hand to her head and realized her encounter with the necromancer had mussed her hair and veils like she had been blown by a fierce wind. And she had.

She sent a tendril between his eyes and the eyes of the
agha
telling them to forget her dishevelment. The necromancer chuckled softly.
You look like a whore after a vigorous tumble in the silks and furs of my bed. I have taken you, Nadira the Reader. I have taken you.

She stood, shaking. “I request that I be sent to the house of Angelo Borelli in Pera.” She thrummed her cords to insist that she be obeyed, for her voice was too weak to pitch it properly.

The vizier nodded. “You will go to the house of his majesty's friend, Angelo Borelli, in Pera.”

The necromancer agreed.
Go there and rest. Regain your strength and save it to incubate my prize.

She felt nauseous at his words.

The interview was over. Nadira wavered. She picked up the fallen veil and covered her hair and face. The great double doors opened and she made slow progress through them. Her legs felt like thick planks and her silks weighed like stones upon her body.

Kemaleddin Reis stood outside the door, waiting for her. In a voice meant to be heard by the servants and his guests he said, “I am to see you escorted to the house of Angelo Borelli.” He made a slight bow of his head and his eyes were gentle when they met hers. In a softer voice, just for her, he said, “It still hurts.” He rubbed his chest with the tips of his fingers.

Her eyes filled with tears. “I know how it feels.”

Angelo Borelli had a large house and stables that took up an entire block. His estate was across the Golden Horn from the sultan's Topkapi palace in the part of Istanbul reserved for foreigners. Nadira was ushered in through an impressive gate in the garden walls. East and west met in the design of this house and its gardens. The symbolic separation of public and private was evident in the massive walls that rose smoothly and without decoration from the dark soil to high above her head. Once through the massive gate, however, and it was obvious that Angelo Borelli was a Venetian and not a Turk. The house resembled the ornate stucco and red tile roofs Nadira had seen in Rome, but with oriental wood screens in the upper story windows and bright blue and white tile around the windows and doors in the Greek style. The clash of styles told her a great deal about Borelli. The disparate styles fought each other as violently as their representative people did.

Once through the portico and into the cooler halls of the great house, the sparring colors and designs of the exterior calmed to a simmering toleration inside. Borelli's designer had indulged himself with frescos. The garden was brought inside with smooth lines and strokes of a brush. Nadira paused to admire a particularly graceful rendition of a pomegranate tree and the singing birds among its branches. The servant accompanying her gave a polite cough and scuffed a foot on the floor stones to hurry her along. She followed him to a small pleasant room and went inside to wait.

She sat on the edge of the wooden platform that served as a bed. She put a hand on the folded and stacked blankets and cushions and felt the soft textiles. The room was cool and a breeze from the garden outside brought with it the scent of honey-sweet flowers and the green freshness of plants. She sighed deeply and forced herself to relax. Her friends would enter soon, and she must be able to explain what had happened with the necromancer. So much of what had transpired would be inexplicable. She focused on what could be told, and prepared to answer their questions. This would not be the time for joyous greetings. It was the time for a serious discussion of their mission.

They pushed open the door and filed in quietly, taking places throughout the small room, sitting or standing where they could. William shadowed Calvin and Montrose sat next to her on the narrow ledge. They exchanged glances but did not speak.

Alisdair closed the door with one shoulder and leaned against it. When all the faces turned to her she told them, “The necromancer is more than the sultan's astrologer. His influence grows, and as more of the sultan's ministers come under his influence, more decisions are made that are not their own. Some know this.”

She thought of Kemaleddin and his worry for his sultan and the people of the empire. The
reis
was terrified that the necromancer would use him to further his aims. As fleet captain, he was in the position to fire on any ship in the Mediterranean, friend or foe. One tendril in Kemaleddin Reis could start a war with any of the kingdoms of Europe.