They followed her through a small hallway and into a larger room, where the woman switched on a floor- mounted lamp. They were standing in a living room that had a set of French doors giving onto some kind of backyard. It was also cluttered with the memorabilia of a long, full life. Overcrowded shelves strained under the weight of books, picture frames, and vases. A couch and two armchairs were arrayed around a low coffee table and were barely visible under a camouflage of kilim throws and needlepoint cushions, while the walls were a patchwork of small paintings and old black-and-white family photos.
“I’ll make some coffee,” the old woman grumbled. “I know I’m going to need it.”
She padded out of the room. Moments later, the audible fumblings of a pot and a tap were quickly followed by the sound of a struck match and the soft hiss of a gas burner. Tess edged across to take a closer look at the framed photographs. She recognized younger versions of their reluctant hostess alongside various people, records of another era. A couple of dozen frames into the slide show, she stopped in front of one that reached out from the wall and grabbed her by the throat. It showed a young girl standing alongside an older man, a proud father-and- daughter pose. Behind them was a large wooden contraption from a bygone age, a semiautomatic loom of some kind.
A loom used to manufacture cloth.
A piece of machinery used by a draper.
“That’s my mother, and her father,” the old woman said as she returned from the kitchen with a small tray and settled down on the couch. “It was our family business for as long as anyone can remember.”
Tess’s skin was twitching. “What happened?”
“My grandfather lost all his money. He spent it all on a modern loom that was supposed to come from England, but the middleman he bought it from took all his money and disappeared.” She poured thick coffee into small, shot-sized cups and gestured for Tess and Reilly to join her. “He died heartbroken not long after that. My grandmother had to do something to make a living. She knew how to fire clay, it was her father’s business. And this”—she waved her hands around her—”is the result.”
“You sell some beautiful things,” Tess remarked with a smile as she sat down on the couch by the woman. Reilly joined them, settling into the armchair and putting the rucksack down by his feet.
The old woman casually waved away Tess’s comment. “We take pride in what we do, whatever it is. It’s not worth doing otherwise.” She took a sip from her coffee, decided it was too hot, and set it back down. She sat quietly for a moment, then let out a long sigh and raised her eyes to Tess. “So tell me … who are you, exactly? And how did you end up here, in this lost corner of the world, with these old books you’re carrying?”
Tess glanced at Reilly, unsure about what to say. A moment ago, she was seething with indignation, thinking the old woman was out to steal the codices. And yet here they were now, comfortably ensconced in the woman’s living room, sipping coffee and having a courteous little chat.
Reilly nodded her a go-ahead, mirroring her own feelings.
So she told her. Everything. The whole story, from Sharafi’s appearance in Jordan to the shoot-out in the underground city, although she skirted around the gorier parts of it, not wanting to shock her host. Throughout, the old woman listened intently, surprise and fear playing on her face, her eyes roaming Tess’s face and glancing away to Reilly every now and then, only asking for additional clarification a time or two. By the end of it, her hands were shivering. And once Tess was done, she sat quietly for a long moment, working the story over in silence, clearly racked by indecision and worry.
Tess hesitated to wade in. After giving her what she felt was enough time to process it all, she asked, “Why did your granddaughter follow us to our hotel? You asked her to, didn’t you?”
It seemed like the woman didn’t hear her. She just kept staring into her coffee cup, lost in thought, back in the grips of some momentous struggle. After another lengthy deliberation, her words came out slow and soft.
“They didn’t know what to do with them, you know,” she told Tess, barely able to look at her. “We’ve never known what to do with them.” She shut her eyes with remorse, then turned to face Tess. It was as if she’d just crossed a line from from which there was no return.
Tess stared at her blankly for a second, making sure she’d heard her right, then a searing charge of elation burst out of her heart and swept through her. “You have them? You have the other books?” She was now on the very edge of the couch, every pore in her body brimming with anticipation.
The old woman studied her, then nodded slowly.
“How many?”
“Many.” She was surprisingly casual about it, as if she were confirming the most trivial of comments. “The woman, Maysoon. She brought them here, for safekeeping. After Conrad died.”
Tess couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her face felt like it was on fire. Her eyes flicked across to Reilly and were met with a broad, supportive grin. She turned back to the old woman. “So Conrad did have a woman with him?”
“They met in Constantinople, where they both lived.”
“She was a Sufi?” Reilly asked.
“Yes.”
Tess asked, “So what happened to them? Conrad did die in Zelve, didn’t he?”
Chapter 56
CAPPADOCIA
MAY 1310
The villagers received them with a warm, if tentative, welcome. Conrad and Maysoon found the small settlement in a narrow canyon, tucked away from the outside world, a cluster of rock cones set around a church that had been carved into a cliff face. Their arrival was an unusual occurrence. The villagers didn’t get many visitors and were wary of them at first. Still, they brought with them news of the outside world and a sense of event that was rarely seen in the isolated, canyon-based community, and the locals soon relaxed. The priest who tended the rock church also ended up grudgingly giving them his approval, despite his obvious wariness at the sight of a knight of the Cross traveling with a heathen companion. The fact that Conrad had fought to free the Holy Land and lost his hand doing so forced the man to overcome some of his prejudice. Maysoon also helped win him over when, much to his surprise, she quoted lines of scripture that she had learned as a child while studying tolerance under her Sufi master.
The local midwife who doubled as the town’s physician helped Conrad splint and dress Maysoon’s wrist, and they were offered food and drink. By nightfall, the two of them were huddled together by a window high in a carved-out cone of rock whose sole occupier had recently passed away, watching the sky above the rim of the canyon run the gamut of imaginable pinks and purples before settling into a crisp, uniform blackness.
Conrad hadn’t said much all evening, and he hadn’t said a word for the last half hour. Every breath he exhaled was swirling with despair.
Maysoon pulled back from his chest and scrutinized his face.
“What is it?” she asked.
He didn’t answer or meet her eyes at first, seemingly lost in his melancholy. After a long moment, he said, “This. What I’m doing. It’s pointless.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s pointless. Hector, Miguel … they’re gone. God knows what’s waiting for me in Cyprus.” He sighed heavily. “I can’t do this alone.”
“You’re not alone.”
He looked at her, and his face brightened a touch. “You’ve been magnificent. But it’s still pointless. Even together, we can’t do this. I was a fool to think I’d ever be able to make a difference.”
She edged closer. “No, you weren’t. You were right to go after it, you were right to find those books and get them back. But if you can’t achieve what you set out to do … it doesn’t mean you still can’t change the world.”
