“Of course.”
Fevzi Ahmet considered him for a while.
Yashim glanced back at Marta. Kadri: Kadri wasn’t here. He was upstairs. Asleep.
“Just before I left with the fleet,” Fevzi Ahmet said, “one of Galytsin’s agents came to see me. He brought me some unwelcome news.”
“A Baltic German, blond, scarred. He was blackmailing you. You killed him.”
Fevzi’s eyes were like snow holes. “Four out of five. You’re losing your touch.”
Fevzi Pasha sat down in Palewski’s armchair, making Yashim wince. He picked up the poker and riddled the fire. A log crashed down, emitting a shower of sparks. “I need your help.”
“You seem to have help already,” Yashim said, nodding to the man with the gun.
“Oh yes, the caiquejees. Splendidly loyal, I must say, to one of their own. But I’m afraid this is rather beyond them. Beyond any man, except you.”
Yashim frowned. “Why me?”
Fevzi Ahmet let out an exasperated sigh, and stabbed the fire. “Four years ago, when I was promoted to Kapudan pasha, the Russians approached me with an offer.”
“I thought it was earlier than that,” Yashim said drily. “Saint Petersburg? Ten years, at least.”
“Saint Petersburg, Yashim.” Fevzi Ahmet frowned. “The Russians gave me a whore…?”
Yashim looked at him. “You gave Batoumi away.”
“Batoumi was already lost. My job was to let it go.”
“What do you mean, it was your job? To exchange Batoumi for a woman?”
A flash of irritation crossed Fevzi Ahmet’s face. “I took my instructions from the grand vizier. They didn’t involve you-and I thought you were too green. Perhaps you still are.” He fixed Yashim with a stare. “Ironic, isn’t it? Now I need your help.”
“So you say. Four years ago, what offer did the Russians make?”
“Galytsin made me an expensive offer, in return for news. My inactivity.” He shrugged. “All that matters is that I turned them down.”
“Oh?”
“The Russians are hard, Yashim. I didn’t reckon on the cost of ignoring them. A few weeks later my home was burned to the ground.” Fevzi Pasha clinked the poker against the grate. “My wife was inside. A concubine, and the old lala who looked after them.” He paused. “And my daughter, too.”
Yashim looked away.
“But I saved her, Yashim.”
Yashim glanced up quickly. Fevzi Pasha’s eyes were bright with triumph.
“Yes-I saved her. The lala dropped her into my arms.”
116
Kadri opened his eyes in the dark and wondered what had woken him.
He glanced at the window; it was a dark night, and he could not tell what time it was.
He pushed his blanket aside and swung his bare feet onto the floor, cocking his head, listening to a faint murmur from somewhere downstairs.
Perhaps Yashim had come?
He was about to get back into bed when he realized that he was thirsty.
He would go down to the kitchen and fetch a glass of water without disturbing the two men.
He pulled on a woollen coat the ambassador had lent him, and padded to the stairs.
Somewhere below, a floorboard creaked.
Kadri had lived wild in the hills of Cappadocia, and he was not afraid of the dark, but he paused at the sound.
“All ready?”
Kadri was suddenly alert.
Someone had whispered on the landing below.
He bent over the banister, listening.
117
Fevzi Pasha rested the tip of the poker against the grate. “The fire taught me that as long as I had a family, I would never be safe. The Russians might try again, and next time they would use my daughter. So I gave her up.”
Yashim thought back to the horrible doll in Fevzi Ahmet’s house.
“The sultan had appointed me to command the fleet, and to build a bridge across the Golden Horn. I had to put her somewhere safe.”
“The sultan’s palace,” Yashim murmured.
“I arranged for her to enter the sultan’s harem, yes. Only an old eunuch would know who she was. So I thought.”
“Hyacinth?”
“Full marks, Yashim. But then you know the story, don’t you? It was me and Hyacinth-until someone told the Russians, after all.”
He was staring at Yashim, but Yashim was aware only of something unlocking in his mind-something about Hyacinth, and the harem, and the dead girls.
“Someone who wished me harm,” Fevzi Ahmet added. “In the circumstances, I imagine it was you.”
Yashim blinked. “Me?”
“‘Me’! You can do better than that, Yashim. But I don’t have time to listen to your outraged innocence. You wouldn’t think it, ambassador, would you?” Fevzi Ahmet called over his shoulder. “Yashim sold my little girl to your old friends. Quite Galytsin’s confidant, I hear.”
“You should have stuck to rowing,” Palewski said glumly.
Fevzi Ahmet’s face twitched as he faced Yashim. “You will bring my daughter here. Hyacinth will find a way.”
“Hyacinth is dead,” Yashim said.
The pasha looked pale. “It is happening…” he muttered. He sprang to his feet and went to the door. “That complicates things-for you. For the sake of your friends, I imagine you can find a way.”
“A way?”
“To get my daughter out of the harem.”
Yashim shook his head. “I can’t just walk out of the sultan’s harem with a little girl.”
Fevzi Pasha whistled into the dark, and two men entered the room: caiquejees both, to judge by their swinging gait.
“These men are going to take you to your cellar, ambassador. Marta-is it? — will accompany you. I’m afraid it won’t be very comfortable, but it depends on your friend how long you will remain there. Tie them.”
The last words were spoken to the caiquejees. They lifted Palewski’s hands and bound them behind his back.
Palewski kept his eyes on Marta, and she on his, even when they tied her hands behind her back. Neither of them spoke.
The door closed behind them. “I don’t know how you plan to get away with it,” Yashim said.
“Interesting, isn’t it? Neither of us can tell how the other will lay his plans. I only hope, for your sake, that yours will be as effective as my own.”
“I’m afraid you overestimate my talents,” Yashim said. “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”
