“Paula doesn’t need a guard all day and all night. I run a tight ship. She’ll be quite safe.”
“So I don’t have to stay in here?” I ventured, not meeting Stoyan’s eye. I was struck by the fact that both of them were calling me Paula, even when speaking to each other. I suspected it was the first of many changes to come.
“I’ll tell you when you can come on deck and where you can sit to keep out of folk’s way,” Duarte said. “You’ll need a cloak; Pero will find you one. Remember that we’re in a hurry. Don’t expect fascinating conversation and nonstop entertainment.”
I gave him a scathing look. “We’ll amuse ourselves,” I said. “Provided we can have access to your books. And some writing materials, if you have them.”
“You plan to pen missives home complaining that you are captive on a pirate ship? Place them in a corked jar, perhaps, and throw them overboard with a hopeful prayer?”
I did not dignify this suggestion with an answer.
“Do we sail through the night?” Stoyan asked.
Duarte shook his head. “We’ll drop anchor in a bay somewhere tonight and be off again at first light. Night sailing is too risky, and I imagine the pursuers will adopt the same caution. In the Black Sea, I plan to lose them. At the end of the voyage, I must take Cybele’s Gift overland. If I can, I want to make that landfall unobserved. A chase across a mountain pass is not a prospect I relish.”
Stoyan and I both looked at him. Duarte seemed to be waiting for us to speak.
“All right,” I said, laying the poetry book down on the bed. “Tell us exactly what it is you’re doing. Where are you taking Cybele and why? And while you’re about it, tell me who those men were who attacked Stoyan on the docks. Not yours, I presume, since your crew rescued him.”
Duarte sat down on the bunk beside me. I edged away, knowing there was no chance of following normal rules of propriety in such a place but wary all the same. Stoyan remained standing, his eyes narrow.
“I find that I am not quite prepared to trust you,” Duarte said, glancing at me and away. For the first time, his tone sounded less than fully confident, and that surprised me. “Much rides on this. A personal stake that cannot be measured in gold or silver. I became aware some time ago that, alongside the merchants who were bidding for Cybele’s Gift, another party wished to track down the artifact for his own reasons. The interest of the religious authorities in Istanbul was at first a tightly guarded secret but became common knowledge as the raids began.”
“Go on,” I said.
“You will know that I speak of the Sheikh-ul-Islam,” Duarte said gravely. “He is a ruthless man, and he has a long reach. In hindsight, I suspect his hand in the murder of your father’s Turkish colleague. Salem bin Afazi was a devout Muslim. He made the error of putting personal friendship before the strict observance of his faith when he gave Master Teodor advance notice of this artifact’s arrival in the city. That alone, I believe, would have been enough to attract the Mufti’s attention. The religious authorities being what they are, it may have been interpreted as a personal interest in pagan idolatry. I cannot say how the Sheikh-ul-Islam came by the information, but the punishment was quick and deadly.”
This was shocking and, I was forced to admit, entirely believable. It was the same idea Stoyan had hinted at when we first discussed Cybele’s Gift. And if Duarte was telling the truth about this, perhaps he had also been honest when he’d said the attack on my father was not his doing. If that was the case, I had behaved appallingly toward him.
“Is there other evidence to back up your theory?” asked Stoyan.
“Indeed. Men have been tailing the bidders around Istanbul.” Duarte gave Stoyan an appraising glance. “Until you came rushing on board to accuse me of attacking Master Teodor, Paula, I believed your father was the one bidder, apart from myself, who had managed to move about the city untracked. Pero and I discussed this and put it down to his cool head, his experience, and the presence of Stoyan. I was taken aback to hear that Master Teodor had been assaulted this morning. The timing was odd, since it was clear the Mufti’s attention was on me today—he has finally learned of my interest in Cybele’s Gift. Pero recognized several of those who set upon Stoyan. Our friend here happened to be in the wrong place at a crucial time. The Mufti’s men were trying to board the
“Which your crew returned,” Stoyan said. “I did not know who had dispatched that mob to the dock. I did know that if there was any chance Paula had reached your ship, I did not want them on board.”
“A search?” I was puzzled by Duarte’s theory. “But wouldn’t the Mufti send uniformed Janissaries? Or officials? That just looked like a band of thugs.”
Duarte smiled thinly. “Officials carry out inspections, interviews, visits. In this case, I suspect what was intended was brazen theft, backed up by violence as required. In broad daylight, on a crowded dock, with a crew such as mine to confront, it could not be done covertly. Hence the thugs: unidentifiable by passersby, with nothing to connect them with the Sheikh-ul-Islam. But we know who sent them. Pero is extremely well informed about who hires whom at a certain level of activity.”
“How can you call it theft,” I challenged, “when the artifact is stolen already?”
Duarte sighed in exasperation. “Paula, my silver is as good as your father’s. I paid a fair price; Barsam was happy. Cybele’s Gift is legitimately mine. For a short time.”
“For a short time,” I said flatly. “Until when, exactly? Where is it we’re going?” I remembered the trip from Constana and the few moments when the prospect of being boarded and attacked had seemed all too real.
Duarte hesitated.
“Senhor,” Stoyan said, frowning, “you have made it clear you do not intend to set us ashore along the way. That means Paula and I must accompany you to this destination. There seems to me no reason to withhold its name from us.”
“Paula is a merchant’s daughter,” Duarte said. “She came on board my ship clad in a disguise. Maybe she’s on
