97
Hyacinth had not gone out. Indeed, just as he had feared, he would never again leave the palace, which had been his home for so many years.
There was no one alive, except the valide herself, who could have remembered the stringy little African boy who had arrived at the Topkapi Palace in the cold winter of 1789. When he had first seen snow, he had shrieked with terror: for a whole day he sat in the antechamber of the eunuchs’ apartments, with his hands over his funny little ears, and shrieked every time someone opened the door. The old eunuchs had found this quite hilarious; and some of the more mischievous girls had come to tease him, pretending the sky really was falling on their heads, until the Kislar aga of the day had shooed them all away, and sentenced Hyacinth to stand in the snow in bare feet until he understood what it was.
Which was also how he got his name, Hyacinth, growing most incongruously out of the snow-covered ground.
Hyacinth no longer minded the snow, of course. As it settled on his hair, and on his back, and drifted between his curled fingers, he was quite dead to the ancient terror it had once inspired.
He lay in the pool, on the tiles, exactly where he had fallen, as snow covered the lake of blood that seeped from his smashed forehead, and turned to dark ice on the frozen ground.
98
The man with the knife saw and heard the dog before the dog saw him.
It ran howling out of the pine trees, a big mastiff with a thick, matted yellow coat. A proper shepherd’s dog. When it stumbled and lurched sideways, snapping at its own tail, the man with the knife felt a tremor of fear.
He stood very still, thinking the mastiff might not see him if he did not move. Its eyes were sticky, foam lashing at its jaws, and it whirled from side to side, stumbling nearer to him across the frozen ground. But there was no purpose in its erratic course. There was a chance that the dog would simply pass him by.
When the dog was only a few yards away, the man reluctantly lifted his stick.
At no moment did the frenzied animal recognize the man, or make up its mind to attack: it seemed lost in its own suffering. But as he raised his stick, the dog flung itself at him, suddenly, with its lips peeled back and jaws wide.
The man was caught off guard, but he was strong and his aim was good. The stick connected with the dog’s muzzle in mid-spring, as the man stepped back. The dog landed heavily, shook its huge head, and bared its teeth with a strangled sound.
He hit it again, a more considered blow on the side of its head.
The mastiff staggered, and seemed about to fall, but as the man raised the stick again it sprang disjointedly. The vicious jaws snapped shut on the stick, and with a heave of its head it almost pulled it out of his hands.
The man pressed the stick to the ground, lowering the dog’s head, watching the saliva run toward his hands. It took great strength to hold the stick down. He wanted his knife.
The dog shook the stick a few times, then yelped and dropped back, jaws agape.
That was all the time the man needed. He plucked his knife from his belt and raised the stick, and when the dog came on again, grinding its fangs from side to side, he slammed the stick against its jaws with one hand and with the other stuck the knife straight and hard into the dog’s neck, behind the ear.
He felt its hot breath against his chest; he felt the heat of its blood running over his hand. He twisted the knife and dragged down savagely, once, twice, grunting with exertion as he pulled the blade through the matted fur.
The dog sagged, overbalancing them both. The man fell back, unable to keep the weight of the dog from sinking against his chest. Blood from its gashed neck spurted out over his legs and he scrambled backward, the slippery hilt of the knife sliding from his fingers.
On the ground the mastiff jerked spasmodically, working its jaws while its hind legs scrabbled for purchase. But the man knew it was over.
He held the back of his wrist to his mouth and watched the dog die.
It died with a sort of ragged gasp. One moment it had muscles, and a form; the next, it was splayed on the ground, haunches high, the head lolling and blood staining the grass.
The man waited for a few minutes, until his heartbeat settled. He bent down and pulled the knife clear. He wiped it on the grass: he did not wish to touch the dog.
99
Yashim woke early, groping for the quilt that had slipped from his legs. He squinted at the unaccustomed brightness and then sat up, yawning, and rubbed the condensation from the window pane. Snow lay thick on the rooftops of Balat.
He drew up his knees and leaned back against the cushions, watching his dragon’s breath.
After a few moments he began to grope for his clothes, drawing them under the quilt to warm up, before he sprang with a shiver from the divan and began to dress, hurriedly wriggling his arms into the sleeves of the cambric shirt he wore over his woolen vest. There was ice in the washbasin: Yashim pulled a face, plunged his hand through the ice, and splashed freezing water over his eyes, his mouth and ears. He dried himself quickly on a towel, feeling newly awake. Over his shirt he put on a woolen waistcoat and a quilted jacket; then he tucked his feet into a pair of slippers.
Outside the door he bent down and carefully fastened a pair of galoshes over his feet. The alley was covered in snow, but once he reached Kara Davut the way was better; shopkeepers had shoveled the snow into the middle of the road. He entered his favourite cafe, rubbing his hands, and the proprietor nodded and put a small coffee pan on the coals.
Yashim ate his breakfast by the steamed-up window, coffee and a corek as usual, which is how the palace chaush found him a few minutes later. Several heads turned in the cafe as he presented Yashim with a note, bound in vermilion ribbon; then they looked hastily away. Among the Turks, curiosity was not reckoned a virtue.
Yashim read the note, frowned, and put it into his breast pocket.
“Let’s go,” he said.
100
The search for Hyacinth had not begun in earnest until after midnight, when the other eunuchs protested at his absence from prayers. Confusion reigned over where the old eunuch was likely to have gone; so it was not until the small hours that a proper search had been instituted by the corporal of the halberdiers.
Off-duty men had been roused from their sleep to join the search, and to confirm that Hyacinth had not left the harem earlier in the day. They looked first in the cavernous kitchens of the palace, built, like the Court of the Favorites and the pool, by the great Sinan, and then in the harem mosque. The harem was a warren of corridors and courts and little rooms, and the search party proceeded only slowly, and with many delays, as women were roused and questioned through half-open doors, and empty rooms were opened and inspected.
The harem had been home to many hundreds of women, eunuchs, and children, and over the centuries it had grown higgledy-piggledy over several levels, as rooms were extended or partitioned, demolished and rebuilt. The search party had stuck together, holding flaming torches, as they climbed and descended and followed corridors
