How effectively had they been put down?
Ten years on, how many Janissaries had survived?
Yashim knew just where to ask the questions. Whether he would be vouchsafed any answers, he was not so sure.
He looked up at the branches of the great plane tree for a last time, and patted its massive trunk. As he did so his hand met something that was thinner and less substantial than the peeling bark.
Out of curiosity he tugged at the paper. In the last of the moonlight he read:
Unknowing
And knowing nothing of unknowing,
They spread.
Unknowing
And knowing nothing of unknowing,
They seek.
Yashim glanced uneasily around. As the cloud blotted out the moon, the Hippodrome seemed to be deserted.
Yet he had an uncomfortable feeling that the verses he had read were intended for him. That he was being watched.
[ 26 ]
The gigantic records of the Ottoman administration were housed in a large pavilion that formed part of the division between the second and third, or more inward, court of the palace at Topkapi. It was entered from the second court, through a low doorway protected by a deep porch guarded by black eunuchs day and night. An archivist was always in attendance, for it had long ago been observed that although most of the sultans avoided much strenuous work after hours, their viziers could demand papers at any time. Even now, as Yashim approached, two torches blazed at the entrance to the Archive Chambers. The light revealed four muffled shapes crouching in the doorway, the eunuch guard.
The night was cold and the men, drawing their heavy burnouses closely round their heads, were either fast asleep or wishing to be so. Yashim stepped lightly over them, and the door yielded soundlessly to his fingertips. He closed it behind him without a sound. He was standing in a small vestibule, with an intricately modelled ceiling and a beautiful swirl of Kufic letters incised around the walls. Candles burned in glimmering niches. He tried the door ahead, and to his surprise he found it opened.
In the dark it looked even bigger than the book-barn he remembered: the stacks which took up space in the centre of the room were invisible in the gloom. Down one side of the room ran a low bench, or reading table, with a line of cushions; and far away, almost lost in the echoing darkness, was a very small point of light that seemed to draw the darkness closer in upon it. As he watched, the light snapped off, then leaped out again.
“An intruder,” a voice announced, pleasantly. “How nice.”
The librarian was coming down the room. It was the exagger—ated sway of his walk, Yashim realised, that had blocked the candlelight for a moment.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
The librarian stepped up to a lamp by the door and gently trimmed the wick until the light was bright enough for them to look at one another. Yashim bowed, and introduced himself.
“Charmed. My name’s Ibou,” the other said simply, with a slight bob of his head. He had a light and almost girlish voice. “From Sudan.”
“Of course,” said Yashim. The most sought-after eunuchs at the palace came from the Sudan and the Upper Nile, lithe, hairless boys whose femininity belied their enormous strength and even more colossal powers of survival. Hundreds of boys, he knew, were taken every year from the Upper Nile and marched across the deserts to the sea. Only a few actually arrived. Somewhere in the desert, the operation was performed; the boy was plunged into the hot sand to keep him clean, and kept from drinking for three days. If, at the end of those three days, he was not mad, and could pass water, his chances were very good. He would be the lucky one.
