“Would that include intercepting my correspondence?”
“If we thought it necessary.”
“Have you?”
“Not yet, miss.”
“Then here.” And she offered them the telegram.
Together they read it, their brows furrowing. Patrick said, “Ephesus? Where’s that?”
“It’s south of here, near to the coast,” Sophia said. “The ancient Greeks built a temple there to Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. It was called one of the seven wonders of the world. The site’s under excavation, and I’ve been offered a tour.” She dug an atlas from her trunk, found the correct page, and pointed. “Here.”
They gazed down at the atlas, judging the town’s considerable distance from the Golden Horn, the dearth of other cities nearby. “I’m sure this wasn’t on the itinerary,” said Patrick.
“You must know by now that I never had any intention of going to India,” Sophia said.
The man nodded. “But what are your intentions, miss, if we’re all being honest with each other?”
She regarded them, and then said, “I’m sure my mother told you tales of my wanton disobedience. I won’t ask you to repeat them,” she added, as their expressions turned guarded, “nor will I call them lies. I dreaded the future she’d arranged for me, and in my unhappiness I turned to the wrong quarter for comfort. I’ve paid the price for that decision, and it won’t be repeated. My intention now is to explore the Middle East for as long as I can, and not return until . . . until I can do so on my own terms.”
They took this in, weighing it between them. “And there’s no chance of you changing your mind?” said Patrick.
“None. You’d have to force me back, I’m afraid.”
She was trembling, they saw—not with cold, but fear. “There won’t be any of that,” Lucy said gently. “But we can’t just give up and sail for home, either. We signed a contract. And besides, miss, you’ll need protection. Traveling alone, you’d be a mark for every bandit and kidnapper in the East.”
She thought. “Would you be willing to adjust your roles? Bodyguards, instead of spies?”
Patrick pursed his lips. “I’d wager your mother’d be against it.”
Sophia considered this, then nodded. “We’ll tell my father instead.”
In his library, Francis Winston read the cable three times over, then wiped a hand over his eyes and blew out a frustrated breath. Pinkertons, for God’s sake! Didn’t Julia have any sense at all? Of course Sophia would see straight through the pair! He folded the telegram away, and asked a footman to fetch his coat and stick. No, he wouldn’t be needing the carriage—he merely wanted to walk.
North he went, past neighboring mansions, and entered Central Park along the East Drive. The last stubborn leaves shivered and clung to the branches above him, while their fallen siblings hissed past along the cobbles. He brooded as he went, his midday meal souring in his stomach. He was habitually dyspeptic these days—the victim, according to his doctor, of an overrich diet. That which wealth provides may not be the most natural for the body, the man had said. Francis had laughed at that.
He was puffing slightly by the time he crossed the Transverse and arrived at the tall, sharp-edged incongruity of Cleopatra’s Needle, jutting upward among the trees. He chose a bench and sat, planting his stick between his feet. This was where he came when anger threatened to rule him, when he must sit with his temper and wrestle it into harness, yoke it alongside reason and will. He’d spent countless hours here, gazing up at the carvings and imagining the labor, the sweat and sinew, that had gone into the Needle’s making. He’d seethed with jealousy at Vanderbilt’s coup when the Needle had arrived in New York, had watched from his bedroom window, far above the crowds, as the obelisk rolled along its trestles on Fifth Avenue: a captured queen, a stone Zenobia paraded through the streets in golden chains. And now look at the wretched thing. Pitted and crumbling, its hieroglyphs fading from view as the seaboard climate destroyed what centuries in the desert had preserved. Powerful men had made it; powerful men had spelled its doom.
He was growing chilled; he felt old and maudlin and foolish. The indifferent Needle rose above him, an arrow set to pierce the heavens. A line from Homer came to him: I sing of Artemis whose shafts are of gold, the pure maiden, shooter of stags. At last he stood heavily and walked home again, where he confided to his valet that he’d need his private bedroom readied for the night—for once he’d spoken to Mrs. Winston, she’d be in no mood to admit him into hers.
SOPHIA WINSTON, PERA PALACE HOTEL, CONSTANTINOPLE
AGREE TO CHANGE OF CONTRACT AND ITINERARY. WILL WIRE ADDITIONAL FUNDS. GO FORTH ON YOUR HUNT AND MAY YOUR AIM BE TRUE.
FRANCIS WINSTON
3.
The excited whisper went out among the children of Little Syria, flying from mouth to mouth among alley games of hopscotch and marbles:
Mister Ahmad is back! Mister Ahmad is back!
And so it was, for there was the particular sound of his hammer on the anvil, issuing from the shop window: clang-clang, clang-clang, a different rhythm than Mister Arbeely’s, slower and stronger, like the heartbeat of a giant.
The children all loved Mister Ahmad. He was a figure of some mystery among them, being a desert Bedouin—or so he’d told them—and not a Christian born and baptized, like their own fathers. The children liked to invent rumors about him, saying that he could perform feats of strange magic, and whistle birds down from the air, and survive for months without food and water. Whenever one of these rumors reached the man’s ears, he’d say nothing to either confirm or deny it—only raise an eyebrow and put a finger to his lips.
Little Syria’s adults took note of the man’s return as well. They wondered, had he come back with a bride? Or an aging mother, ready at last to sail to America? But neither bride nor mother appeared. Nor did he
