“I believe we are taking the right steps,” he said. “I am very positive about the Edict. But I understand, also, that there will be enormous difficulties in persuading many people of the need for these changes. Sometimes, to tell you the truth, I see opposition everywhere—even in my own home.”
Palewski was rather touched. The sultan’s home, as they both knew, contained about 20,000 other people.
“Some will think that I am going too fast. Just a few may think that I have gone too slowly. And sometimes even I am afraid that what I am trying to do will be so misunderstood, so mangled and abused, that in the long run it will be the end of…all this.” And he gestured sadly at the decorations. “But you see, Excellency, there is no other way. There is nothing else we can do.”
They had sat in silence together for some moments.
“I believe,” Palewski said slowly, “that we must not fear change. The weight of the battle shifts here and there, but the hearts of the men who fight in it are not, I suppose, any weaker for that. I also believe, and hope, that you have acted in time.”
“Inshallah. Let us hope together that the next round of changes will be the better for us—and for you.”
And he had thanked the ambassador again for listening to him, and they shook hands.
As the sultan left to visit the Russian prince, he had turned at the door.
“Forget the incident this evening. I have forgotten it already. But not our talk.”
Unbelievable. Even Stratford Canning, the Great Elchi as the Turks liked to call him, who helped prop up the Porte against the pretensions of the Russians, would have swooned with pleasure if the sultan had spoken to him so sweetly.
Palewski—who normally took mornings one thing at a time -clasped his hands behind his head on the pillow, grinned, wriggled his toes, pulled the bell rope for tea, and decided that the first thing he would do today was pay a visit to the baths.
And later, it being a Thursday, he would dine with Yashim.
[ 89 ]
As the lid swung up on well-oiled hinges Yashim took a cautious peek inside.
The light was dim, and the interior of the chest in shadow, but even so Yashim could recognise something that was as prosaic as it was unexpected.
Instead of the dead cadet he dreaded, a stack of plates.
Beside the plates lay a tray of rather finicky little glasses, turned on their rims to keep out dust. Next to them, a metal goblet covered with what proved to be a folded strip of embroidered cloth. And a book.
Yashim picked it up. It was the Koran.
Otherwise the chest was empty, and smelled of polish.
Yashim smiled, a little grimly.
They’re getting the caterers in, he said to himself. For a feast.
A Karagozi bacchanal.
He closed the lid quickly and made for the stairs. Halfway up he found himself swallowed in darkness and began taking the stairs two at a time, surging out of the spiral and across the chamber he had come in by, not caring that his flying feet raised a cloud of dust as he slewed over the floor. Out on the parapet he yanked the door closed, hooked the chain, and leaned back against the wall, breathing heavily. From where he stood he could look down into the branches of the elegant cypress tree.
How is it, he asked himself, that I can be frightened by a set of crockery?
Because, he thought, this time I’ve got it right. Three bodies turn up, close by three tekke. This would be the fourth. Established on the site of the Janissaries’ greatest triumph—the Conquest of Constantinople.
And the body was yet to come.
[ 90 ]
