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 IV. “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. Seraskier’s Tower. Hmm. The empire honours 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 short-sightedly 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.”
