The Sultan's Eyes (22 page)

Still, my doubts festered. I’d retraced our many conversations, searching for hints or lies or misunderstandings. I remembered passages from the Bible that warned of love between men, but their harshness made no sense in the light of what I believed in my heart about my friends. They were good men and true friends to me, and clearly adored Valentina.

But I had little understanding of their lives, their love. Yet again I had failed to understand the essence of another person, and now I had to look at Al-Qasim through new eyes.

There was a long pause.

‘Well, then,’ he said, more loudly, ‘to work. Enough of intrigue. From now on, no secrets between friends.’

If only that had been true.

It was high summer by the time we were happy with the way the press operated. It was slow going. Whereas in Venice we’d had as many workers as we needed, here we had to do everything ourselves. We simply couldn’t run the risk of employing any local men, and none of them had ever seen a printing press anyway. So we did everything together: the proofreading and corrections, the printing and collation. It took much longer than usual and we handled fewer pages in a day than we normally would.

Paul worked quickly enough, confidently making up the lines of type and readily fixing any mistakes we found in the proof sheets. He even let Willem take a turn at the composition desk. It was a skill Willem loved in theory but it didn’t match his temperament, and all the fiddling about with each piece of type sent him into a frenzy after a very short time. If we found an error in the setting,
he glared at us as if we’d put it there to test him. But apart from that, and Paul’s refusal to read or speak any language but Latin and his own, we worked well enough together.

The days passed quickly. We went to the workshop in the early mornings, when the noise of the city outside was most likely to drown out the sound of the press. Those of us who were allowed into the palace spent our afternoons there. I read with the Sultan and Ay
e, while Al-Qasim bent over translations and transcriptions in the library. I joined him there when the Sultan changed into his hunting outfit and rode off into his private wilderness. It was cooler on the hill, where fountains trickled, trees in the park cast deep shade, and the breeze swept up from the sea. Even so, many of the women from the harem and their servants fled to the old palace across the water, where, it was said, the air was pleasant and apricots dropped soft and sweet from every tree.

I finally finished translating Hypatia, and read parts of it aloud to the Sultan and his sister one stifling afternoon. The Sultan yawned.

‘That’s extraordinary,’ said Ay
e. ‘So this woman —?’

‘If it is indeed her work,’ I said.

‘Her book was missing all this time?’

‘Not missing,’ I said. ‘Here.’

The Sultan clapped his hands in delight. ‘It is a great discovery, here in my own library. The world will be in awe.’

‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘But there is much more research to do before I can be sure.’

‘An ancient mystery!’ said the Sultan. ‘I like that. You will solve it, Isabella.’

‘I will try, Your Magnificence.’

That night, I took Hypatia home with me, the pages wrapped up tight and smuggled through the gates in my basket. It was the first time I’d tried to sneak any manuscripts out of the palace, but by now my face was so familiar to the
kapici
that they waved me through. Captain Skender smiled and wished me good evening. I pushed away a spasm of guilt.

At home, I spread the original and my transcripts out on the table for everyone to see. Justinian bent over and inspected them closely.

‘If you’re not certain what it is,’ said Willem, ‘I’m not sure we should print it.’

‘But what if it’s something really important?’ I said. ‘What if it really is Hypatia’s original work?’

‘What if it’s not?’

‘It’s glorious writing, no matter who wrote it,’ said Valentina. ‘Perfect. Philosophy and mathematics combined to explain the movements of the stars. How much of it is yours?’

‘A little — not much.’

‘Did you have to correct the Greek?’

‘
Signora
, you know me far too well,’ I said. ‘It was archaic, but perfectly readable.’

‘What does Al-Qasim say?’ asked Willem. ‘He’s the mathematician.’

‘He says there’s a very good chance that it is what we suspect it is.’

‘I think he’s right,’ said Justinian.

We all stood perfectly still for a moment, savouring the tang of possibility.

‘I trust Isabella and Al-Qasim on this,’ said Valentina. ‘We don’t need to make extraordinary claims. We can publish and leave it to
the scholars to debate the provenance. That alone will be enough to ensure its success.’

‘It will be a sensation in the universities,’ Justinian said. ‘And rightly so.’

‘Even better, Fra Clement will absolutely hate it.’ Willem took out a notebook. ‘Let’s estimate the first print run, then. I think we should start with a limited release. That’ll make it seem even more precious.’

He translated for Paul, who stared down at the pages spread before him.

‘I will have nothing to do with this,’ Paul said slowly. ‘This is pagan logic. It is the Devil’s work.’

When I translated his words for the others, Justinian laughed. ‘A thousand years have passed and still poor Hypatia is accused of paganism.’

‘Then it’s time to reclaim her honour,’ said Valentina.

‘I will have nothing to do with this,’ Paul said again, and left the room. We heard the street door slam.

‘Don’t worry,’ Willem said. ‘He’ll come around, you’ll see.’

Valentina stood gazing towards the hallway. ‘He’d better.’ She turned to us and smiled brightly. ‘So, my friends, what do we do now?’

‘I think,’ said Justinian, ‘it’s time to ask for help.’

We filed into the Admiral’s office like a choir into church stalls and took our seats.

‘I am honoured to see so many of you here today,’ said Admiral Jonson. ‘I have no doubt that you’ll tell me what this is all about.’

‘You have been so kind to us since our arrival here,’ I said.

He bowed graciously. ‘It has been my great pleasure.’

‘The thing is —’ Justinian began, but Valentina raised her hand to slow him down.

‘Allow me.’ She fixed her most winning smile on Admiral Jonson. ‘We wish to confide in you, sir,’ she said. ‘We plan a little project to keep us busy and to share the wisdom of Europe with our Ottoman friends.’

‘A press,’ said Justinian. ‘A little printing house.’

The Admiral stared at his son. ‘You know about this already?’

Justinian jumped up. ‘Yes, of course, Father. But we wanted you to know, too. Straightaway.’

His father nodded. ‘I see.’

I couldn’t tell whether or not he approved.

‘It is early days,’ I said. ‘We’re just getting set up, and Justinian has been an enormous help.’

‘Now I understand where you run off to every evening,’ the Admiral said.

There was a moment of confused silence. I had no idea what the Admiral meant, but wherever Justinian went in the evenings, it had nothing to do with us.

Justinian hung his head to hide the blush that raced across his cheeks, and mumbled something too low for me to hear.

‘What did you say, boy?’ asked the Admiral.

‘I thought it was time you knew.’

‘Very well,’ said his father. ‘Go on.’

I stepped in. ‘You see, sir, we’ve discovered some ancient texts in the palace, thought to be lost to history — works by Hypatia and Euclid.’

‘But surely they were destroyed in the Great Fire of Alexandria?’

‘Exactly!’ cried Al-Qasim. ‘Yet here they are, intact, or at least mostly so, but in need of translation from the Greek or Arabic so we can publish them for European readers.’

‘Remarkable,’ said the Admiral.

‘You know them?’ asked Willem.

‘Of course, son,’ said the Admiral. ‘I was a navigator as a young man — studied Euclid till my eyeballs bled.’

Willem chuckled.

‘The Admiral is modest,’ said Al-Qasim. ‘He knows the stars as well as I do.’

‘You are too kind, sir,’ said Admiral Jonson. He sat back in his chair and patted his stomach. ‘It’s a long time since I had any need of such expertise.’

‘But many still do,’ I said. ‘And that knowledge can pass both ways, from Arabic into Latin and French, and vice versa. So while we’re working on those translations, we have assembled a press.’

The Admiral beamed. ‘Wonderful! You can print some books for the people here in Constantinople. We can bring the Word of our Lord to the infidel.’

‘Father, that’s not quite —’

Al-Qasim cut in with a dazzling smile. Honestly, he and Valentina were impossible to resist when they decided to be charming. They often managed to make Willem forget what he was saying and do the opposite of whatever it was he’d intended.

‘Certainly,’ said Al-Qasim. ‘We are all in favour of enlightenment. That’s why the first book off the press will be an edition of
The Sum of All Knowledge
.’

The Admiral’s smile dimmed just a little. ‘I see.’

‘Do you, Father?’ Justinian bent forward and put both hands flat on the desk. ‘Can you understand how important this could
be? Do you really see? Just imagine! Ideas flowing between East and West. Great philosophies, important scientific discoveries, maps, architectural skills. There’s so much we could share between the Ottoman Empire and Europe. And we can make it happen. Us! Here in Constantinople, in this moment. Now.’

Admiral Jonson watched his son’s face as he spoke, gazing up into his eyes.

Justinian went on, almost as if the rest of us weren’t there. ‘You will be remembered as the Admiral — the man — who broke down the walls between London and Constantinople, who shed the light of knowledge into the corners of both cities, of every city.’

‘Me?’ His father raised an eyebrow. ‘Thank you for presenting that thrilling vision of the future, Justin, but you’d better explain what on earth your little scheme has to do with me.’

‘Ah. Yes. Well, you see, Father …’ Justinian paused to gather his thoughts just long enough for me to interject.

‘We’d like your blessing, first of all, sir.’

The Admiral nodded. ‘I think you shall have that, unless there’s anything else I need to know? My only condition is that none of your little projects are books banned in England by General Cromwell. I cannot be seen to have any part in that.’

‘Of course not, Father,’ said Justinian.

‘The clandestine nature of your operation also worries me,’ the Admiral said. ‘The palace disapproves of mechanical printing.’

‘Isabella’s going to sort that out,’ said Willem. ‘With the Sultan.’

‘I see. Well, in that case, yes, you have my blessing.’

Valentina leaned forward and rested one hand on the Admiral’s desk. ‘We’d also like your permission for Justinian to work with us.’

‘That sounds like an excellent proposition,’ he replied. ‘Goodness knows, I haven’t seen him this excited about any of his embassy work.’

I had to agree.

Justinian grinned. ‘Sorry, Father. But copying out letters for your signature is not quite as exciting as publishing.’

‘Then I promise to buy the very first copy,’ said his father. ‘But something tells me you also have a further request?’

Valentina smiled. ‘You know us too well,’ she said. ‘We’d like you to write to someone for us.’

We celebrated our minor achievement with supper at home. The servants brought out platter after platter of birds grilled on rosemary sticks, fried fish with melon slices, mint jellies and cherries and cinnamon cream. By the time Mirza poured cups of coffee, Willem was fit to burst.

‘I may never eat again,’ he said.

‘You’ve said that so many times since we’ve been here,’ I teased. ‘Yet somehow you survive the next meal, and the next.’

He grinned, but soon enough his head drooped down onto his chest and he dozed off. Paul nodded goodnight and went upstairs to his room.

The rest of us sat by the open window, looking up at the stars and the night sky. Justinian turned an orange over and over in his hands, then broke its skin with his thumbnail. Its scent filled the air. He peeled it carefully, broke it into segments and offered me one.

‘Imagine,’ he said. ‘Up there are the same stars Hypatia saw, or near enough. They haven’t changed in all that time.’

‘Indeed,’ said Al-Qasim. ‘And in her honour, I’m going up on the roof to make a few notes, if you will excuse me?’

‘Does he do that every night?’ Justinian asked as we listened to Al-Qasim’s gentle tread on the stairs.

‘If the sky is clear,’ I said.

‘My father’s the same. Can’t help himself, he says, after all those years at sea.’

‘I don’t think Al-Qasim takes too many observations nowadays,’ said Valentina. ‘Sometimes he just needs to sit and look at the stars and think.’