his boy to fetch others from storage.
“No! No send boy.” I adopted a more forceful approach, frowning and gesturing. “Those silks. Bring here, I look!”
The vendor shuffled his feet and mumbled at me, not meeting my eye. I was about to say something exceedingly impolite when a familiar voice spoke from behind me in Greek.
“May I assist?”
I turned. A tall, dashing figure stood there, clad in Turkish style in a red dolman and a wide sashlike belt over loose white shirt and trousers. A pair of dark eyes regarded me quizzically down an aristocratic, high-bridged nose. He was still wearing my scarf.
“You are too polite,” said Duarte. “You must stamp your foot, shriek with fury, and threaten to put him out of business.”
“I’m a grown woman, not a spoiled child,” I retorted, my annoyance fueled by frustration. “I do not require your assistance.”
The pirate grinned. His aquiline features took on a conspiratorial look. “We are friends, are we not, Mistress Paula? And I owe you a favor.” His fingers went up to touch the scarf. “Let me help, please.”
Without waiting for a reply, he addressed himself to the cloth vendor in fluent Turkish. I did not catch all of it, but he seemed to be saying that I was the daughter of an unbelievably powerful man and a personal friend of Duarte himself and that I needed to see everything in the shop right now or a terrible, unspecified pestilence would descend on the vendor and all his family. Then, less dramatically, that the trader could count himself fortunate that I had not yet spread word throughout the carsi that he had insulted a lady.
The effect was stunning. The merchant produced a padded stool and invited me to sit. The tea glasses came out. I explained in Greek what I wanted to see, and, with a ferocious smile, Duarte relayed my wishes to the shopkeeper. The cloth was produced. I inspected it and assessed its quality. I mentioned shoes. The vendor said his boy would show us the best place to purchase fine-quality leather slippers. I spoke of braid and trimmings. The vendor told us how to find his cousin’s establishment in the street of kerchief sellers. One mention of his own name would assure us of attentive service, he added, glancing at Duarte nervously.
I haggled over the price of the silks. By now, we had acquired an audience: my father, the Neapolitan merchants and their wives, and a gaggle of small boys. My Turkish was quite sufficient for this part, but Duarte kept interjecting, threatening the hapless trader with several alarming fates should he take it into his head to cheat me. I ended up with lengths of both the plum and the green at a price I knew to be very fair for middle-grade silk. All the same, I felt dissatisfied. I had so wanted to do this on my own.
We moved on to the shoe seller and then to the kerchief street, where I made additional purchases. Our entourage went with us. Father was watching Duarte closely but did not intervene. He was always alert to anything that might give him a trading advantage. I could see he had made a decision to be unobtrusive and keep his ears open, since I seemed to be coping. The others watched with undisguised interest. I did not like the idea that my visit to the markets would hereafter furnish an amusing tale to be told in the hamam or amongst gatherings of Neapolitan traders. However, the opportunity was too good to let pass.
I purchased a pair of soft leather slippers in dark red, with a flower pattern tooled around the upper edge, and a length of elaborate braid that would look well with the moss-colored silk. I acquired plain, light veils in several shades and a quantity of fine muslin for smallclothes.
Duarte remained close by, putting in a word whenever he seemed to think it necessary. I was torn between irritation and curiosity. There was no need at all for him to do this. It went far beyond compensation for a cheap scarf, even if it had been my favorite.
As the vendor handed me the muslin wrapped up in protective cloth, Stoyan came into view with a package under his arm. The crowd parted as he strode toward us.
“Your watchdog is about to bark,” murmured Duarte in my ear. Through the thin silk of my headscarf, I could feel the warmth of his breath.
A moment later, somehow our guard was between me and the Portuguese. “Kyria, I will escort you,” he said, as if the other man were invisible.
Peering around Stoyan’s bulk, I saw Duarte leaning on a pillar, looking not at all put out.
“Ah,” the pirate drawled, “just in time. Mistress Paula has a great many packages for you to carry.”
I saw Stoyan’s right hand bunch itself into a fist, then relax as he checked himself. As a bodyguard, he knew what he was about.
“Finished, Paula?” Father spoke from the street, his tone calm. “My Neapolitan colleagues have suggested we repair to one of the coffee establishments near the waterfront to relax awhile before we cross back to Galata.”
“Yes, Father, I’m quite finished. Stoyan, I’m afraid I do have rather a lot of parcels. I’ll take some of them myself.”
“I will carry them, kyria.” He relieved me of the bundles.
I wondered if Duarte Aguiar was included in the coffee invitation, but when I looked up from dealing with the shopping, the pirate had vanished into the crowded maze of the carsi, gone as suddenly as he had appeared.
I had not realized how exhausted I was until I sat down. The Neapolitans and their wives settled on the cushions of the coffee shop and introduced themselves to me while Stoyan put down the bundles and took himself off to procure drinks for us.
One of the wives, Fiorella, was asking me about Duarte Aguiar and how it was that I knew him so well.
“I don’t,” I told her. “He just stepped up and offered to help me.”
“He is very handsome, in an aloof kind of way,” put in the other woman, Gemma. “Those melting eyes and that strong profile…”
Father cleared his throat. “A man of his reputation does not volunteer to assist with domestic shopping on a whim. His behavior was odd.”
There was a brief silence. Then one of the merchants, a man named Antonio, said, “It is possible all of us are
