Marianne and the Lords of the East

had never minded being included among the harem's expendable property. Her marriage had procured her a lofty social station and a mild, easygoing husband whom she ruled with the carefully concealed firmness that any Turkish wife worthy of the name brought to the management of her husband. According to his wife, Mustapha Pasha was a perfect kibilik, the very model of a henpecked husband, and one who had adopted as his private motto the Kurdish proverb which said that he who did not fear his wife was less than a man.

Alas, this model husband had been gathered to Allah in paradise some years since and Bulut Hanum, being left a widow, had entered the household of the Queen Mother, with whom she had remained on the friendliest terms, as mistress of the robes. It was to this friendship that she owed her familiarity with the 'Frankish tongue,' which she spoke easily—and with breathtaking rapidity.

While Bulut chattered on, the araba pursued its way through the steep streets of Pera, crowded with vines, Christian religious houses, European embassies and the houses of rich merchants, preceded by a man with a lantern who gave vent from time to time to a nasal shout of 'Dikka-a-at,' like a muezzin with a bad cold. The tiny cafes lining the main street, which were run by Venetians and Provencaux, were all shut by now, since except during the nights of Ramadan, which had ended some three weeks earlier, few people stirred out of doors after sunset in the Ottoman capital. The districts of Pera and Galata, where the law was less severe, were something of an exception to this rule, but even here it was necessary to carry a lantern or pay the penalty. Thus it was that those few pedestrians who were about all carried the swinging lanterns made of pleated paper in a metal frame which gave to the city its air of being permanently en fete.

The carriage made a sudden right turn along the side of a building whose immense walls were surmounted by cupolas and a minaret that gleamed in the light of the rising moon. The talkative Bulut was silent for a moment, listening. The thin notes of a flute came trickling from the building like a tiny mountain spring.

'What is it?' Marianne asked in a whisper. 'Where is the music coming from?'

'From within. It is the tekke—the home of the Mevlani Dervishes. It means that they are beginning their prayers and they will whirl and whirl all night, like planets around the sun.'

'How sad the music sounds. Like a lament.'

' 'Listen to the reed flute,' was the teaching of Mevlana the mystic, 'for it says: from the time that I was first cut from the reeds of the marshes, men and women have lamented in my voice… All things that have been severed from their roots look to the time when they shall be joined again.' '

Madam Cloud's voice had grown remote, and for a moment Marianne was carried away by the poetry of her words which found a strange echo in her own heart that was aptly underlined by the music of the flute. But then she noticed that the araba had stopped at a sign from her companion and that Bulut Hanum, who had glanced backward several times in the past few minutes, was turning around again to peep through a gap in the curtains.

'Why have we stopped?'

'I want to make sure of something. I think we're being followed. When I gave the order to stop, I saw a figure slip behind one of the buttresses of the tekke wall. Someone who didn't want to be seen, because they were not carrying a lantern. Well, we'll see.'

She tapped the driver briefly on the shoulder as a signal to move on and the araba resumed its progress down the sloping street. At that precise moment Marianne, who was also peering through the gap, distinctly saw a shadow detach itself from the deeper darkness of the wall and follow at a respectful distance.

'Who can it be?' Bulut muttered. 'It's a bold man who would dare to follow a lady of the court, and bolder still to walk abroad without a light. I hope it's not an enemy.'

There was a quiver of alarm in her voice, but Marianne was not afraid. The darkness inside the carriage hid her smile. She was very nearly certain that she knew their mysterious follower. It must be either Jolival or Gracchus-Hannibal—if not both, for she had a strong impression that there were two shadows.

'I can't think who could be interested in us,' she said, so calmly that an involuntary sigh of relief broke from her companion's ample bosom. 'Is it far now to where we are going?'

'Ten minutes or so. The Nightingale River runs along the bottom of this valley into which we are descending now, beyond that line of cypresses. Beyond that again you have the buildings of the Arsenal and the whole of the Golden Horn as far as the sweet waters of Europe.'

The view from below the tekke was certainly a magical one, taking in all the area of the harbor which shone like quicksilver in the moonlight, pricked out with the black needles which were the masts of ships. But the beauty of the scene had no power to captivate Marianne, for she was in a hurry to reach her destination and get it over with. Delay now made her vaguely uneasy. After all, she had no proof that the shadowy forms were Jolival and Gracchus… Latour-Maubourg had not concealed the fact that the embassy was watched, and the British ambassador might still be hoping to lay hands on Napoleon's envoy. His spies were so well organized that he could not fail to be aware of the length of the previous night's audience. So it was with a trace of nervousness that she asked: 'When we reach this woman's house—will we be safe there?'

'Absolutely. The guard of janissaries responsible for the protection of the Arsenal and the naval dockyards is within easy reach of the synagogue and can watch that also. The slightest disturbance in the neighborhood will bring them in a moment. We shall be as easy in Rebecca's house as inside the walls of the seraglio. But the main thing is to get there… Hurry, driver! Faster!'

She repeated the order in Turkish and the mule went like the wind. Fortunately, the way, which had been steep at first, had leveled out a good deal and the uneven cobblestones had given way to beaten earth. In a short while they were traveling along a narrow lane that ran along the valley bottom beside the stream.

Seen at close hand, this was infinitely less poetic than from the heights of Pera and gave no hint of deserving its romantic name. It was full of rubbish and gave off a nasty smell compounded mainly of ooze and rotting fish. Indeed the whole district, huddled up against the walls of the Arsenal, which lay between it and the sea, reeked of poverty. The wooden houses, their walls eaten by the salt winds, crowded about an ancient, half-ruined synagogue, their flat roofs and gutters etched against the slate-blue of the sky. Many of them had their ground floors given over to shops, shuttered at this hour, and here and there was a low door of a warehouse or the heavily barred windows of a moneylender with the star of David displayed above the lintel.

But although the houses were old and decaying, the strange thing was that the doors were all stout enough and the locks shone with care. Banks and warehouses were guarded by massive locks and iron bars that showed no trace of rust.

'This,' said Bulut Hanum, 'is Kassim Pasha, and Rebecca's house lies over there.'

She pointed to a garden wall that made a kind of bulge which adjoined the synagogue. The black spires of three cypress trees showed above it and the summit of the gray wall itself was softened by snowy drifts of jasmine.

'Is this the ghetto of Constantinople?' Marianne asked, struck by the cheerless desolation of the houses.

'There are no ghettos in the Ottoman Empire,' Bulut answered gently. 'On the contrary, when the Jews were driven out of Spain by the Inquisition they found a welcome here where they could be free and even respected, for racial prejudice is a thing unknown to us, as it has always been. Black, yellow or brown, Arab or Jew, it is all one to us as long as they contribute to the prosperity of our empire. The Jews live where they will and gather of their own free will about their synagogues, of which there are now some forty in the city. The greatest number are to be found in the adjoining district, but this community is not to be despised.'

'But even if they are not forced to live here, surely they must be very poor, if not actually in want?'

Bulut laughed. 'Don't be taken in by the impoverished look of the houses hereabouts. They are very different inside, as you will see for yourself. The children of Israel are a prudent race, for although they get on well enough with us Turks they are like cat and dog with the rich Greeks of Phanar, who hate them because of their all too often successful rivalry in trade. For this reason they prefer to keep their wealth hidden away from prying eyes and not to provoke their enemies by the splendor of their homes.'

Yet in spite of her companion's reassurances Marianne could not overcome a feeling of inexplicable discomfort and uneasiness. It might have been due to the two shadowy forms which, whether they were there or not, had now become discreetly invisible, or to the valley itself, which might have been charming in spite of its tumbledown hovels if it had not been built up against the forbidding walls of the Arsenal, scarcely more cheerful than a prison with the warlike figures of the janissaries mounting guard on the battlements, the lighted matches for their muskets in their hands. But there the Arsenal was, solid and menacing, like a dike built to stand between this