The young man glanced at him, and shook his head.
“There is nothing there. Huts. Crocodiles in the river. Little bushpig in the road, dogs. He told me I should come. I wanted to.”
Yashim bit his lip.
“I’ve got four brothers, and six sisters,” Ibou continued. “What else could I do? He sent us a little money now and then. When he became chief, he sent for me.”
“I see.”
“He is my mother’s uncle,” Ibou said. Yashim nodded. “My grandfather’s brother. And I wanted to come. Even at the knife, I was glad. I was not afraid.”
No, thought Yashim: you survived. Whether it was anger or desperation, one or the other would help you survive. In his own case, anger. For Ibou? A village of mud and crocodiles, the knife wielded in the desert, the promise of escape.
“Listen to me, Ibou. What’s happened has happened. You have no protector any more, but I will vouch for you. You must come with me now, and tell the men outside that the game is finished. The Hour has passed. Do this, Ibou, before many people die.”
Ibou shivered and passed his hand across his face.
“You…you will protect me?”
“If you come with me now. It has to come from you. Where are they waiting—beneath the Tree?”
“By the Janissary Tree, yes,” Ibou almost whispered.
We must go now, Yashim thought, before he has time to grow afraid. Before we are too late.
He took Ibou’s arm. “Come,” he said.
[ 123 ]
When they reached the Ortakapi Gate, Yashim checked his stride.
“Ibou,” he said in a low voice. “This is as far as I can go. My presence won’t do any good. You must say that the Kislar Agha is dead, and the palace is quiet. Just that. Understand?”
Ibou clutched his arm.
“Will you be here?”
Yashim hesitated.
“I have to find the seraskier,” he said. “There’s no danger for you: they expect the messenger. Now go!”
He patted Ibou on the shoulder, and watched as the young man sauntered through the gateway and headed for the group of men in the darker shadows of the planes. He saw the men stir and turn and, certain that Ibou had their attention, he slipped through the gate and made his way around the opposite wall of the first court, sticking to the shadows.
[ 124 ]
Bombardier Genghis Yalmuk slipped a finger beneath his chin strap and ran it round from ear to ear, to soothe the pressure. He had served in the New Guard for fifteen years, graduating from common soldiering to the artillery corps five years ago, and his only complaint in those fifteen years had been the headgear that soldiers were expected to wear: ferenghi shakos, with tough leather straps. Now he commanded a battalion of ten guns and their crews: forty men, in all.
He glanced over the Hippodrome and grunted. He’d slogged through the sand and heat of Syria. He’d been in Armenia, when the Cossacks broke through the infantry lines and charged his redoubt, with their sabres flashing in the sunlight and their horses foaming at the nostrils, and his commanding officer offering to shoot down any man who deserted his post. Battle, he’d learned, was days and hours of waiting, putting off thought, punctuated by short, savage engagements in which there was no time to think at all. Leave all that, he’d been told again and again, to the commanding officers.
