‘None yet in this street,’ the old woman said.
She was obviously concealing something.
He dug into his kaftan and produced a silver byzant of some value or other – the Turks hadn’t produced a coinage yet, and Byzantine coins were notoriously debased. But it must have some value.
He tossed it to the old woman. ‘How can I get in?’ he asked.
She looked at the coin.
‘I can come back with janissaries,’ he said.
She looked terrified. ‘Effendi – we live in this gate.’
‘You may continue, for all I care,’ he said.
‘We know how to open the gate,’ she said.
He produced another coin.
But it was all taking too long. And it was late afternoon, and the Turks were hurrying to the little mosque for prayers, and suddenly the once-empty street was full.
‘Perhaps another day,’ he said, turned on his heel, and walked away.
Something felt wrong. He didn’t know what, but something felt wrong.
He walked all the way to the Venetian quarter. He was afraid that he’d be stopped because of his Turkish dress, but no one stopped him. In fact, a janissary in the street saluted him.
It was almost dark by the time he reached the Venetian Quarter.
He sat in a tavern with Giannis, Alessandro and Cesare, and related the events of the day. He left Khatun Bengul out of it.
When he spoke of the spring campaign against Venice, Alessandro swore.
‘I heard the same from some of the Jews,’ Swan said.
Alessandro shook his head. ‘Foscari is so focused on the war in Italy, he’s forgotten the Turks and how perfidious they are.’
Giannis agreed.
Swan took a drink of wine. ‘They seem . . . fairly straightforward to me.’ He wanted to say ‘
Alessandro sighed. ‘If only the bishop were not a complete fool,’ he said. ‘I feel I cannot share this with him.’
Giannis scratched at his hairline. ‘I could perhaps rent a boat. Go to Galata, and inform Ser Marco.’ He shrugged. ‘But I couldn’t come back.’
‘Surely they know?’ asked Swan.
‘Let me speak on behalf of my beloved Signoria,’ Alessandro said. ‘We are a nation of sea merchants, most of whom would sell their mothers as whores to make a profit. Money, and the search for money, has its own blindness. And its own pitiable lack of scruple. If a Venetian thinks he can make a profit . . .’ He shook his head. ‘Perhaps some know, but conceal the knowledge. Perhaps others close their minds to the news.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps it is inconvenient,’ he said.
Giannis spat carefully. ‘In the Morea, we say that the difference between a Turk and a Venetian is that at least the Turk believes in something,’ he said.
‘Blessed Virgin,’ Swan said.
‘You must go,’ Alessandro said. ‘I cannot – my absence would be obvious. Swan would be missed by his Turkish friends, and so far, he’s the only one of us to see the cardinal’s house.’
Giannis finished his wine. ‘I’ll be in Galata before the sun rises,’ he said.
‘It’s after curfew!’ Alessandro said.
‘Give me your Turkish clothes,’ Giannis said.
Swan thought for a moment. ‘I love that kaftan,’ he said, but Giannis, who hated everything Turkish, assumed he was kidding.
At nightfall, the janissary at the gate sent for Swan. When he presented himself, the janissary bowed, and handed him an ornate parchment. A firman. A pass, signed in Persian script, for Thomas Swan, Prince of Britain.
At daybreak, an African servant handed a note into the Venetian quarter asking Swan to come for a ride in the countryside. The note was unsigned. On the back, in neat Italian, it said, ‘Come in secret.’ Swan smiled to himself.
‘Cover me with the bishop?’ he asked Alessandro.
Alessandro nodded. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say there was a woman involved.’
Swan wondered how it was that this foppish Italian could read his mind. ‘No,’ he said, lying.
However, being besotted with Khatun Bengul, whose deep brown-black eyes had occurred in every dream he could remember from the night before, didn’t prevent Swan from leaving the Venetian quarter with all the care his youth had taught him.
First, he no longer had Turkish clothes.
Secondly, he didn’t want his watchers – Yellow Face and Tall Man – to see him at Idris’s palazzo. Once they had followed him there, they would watch the place.
It was early. He was in European clothes, and he took a dagger under his doublet. Then, before the side streets were full of vegetable stalls, he climbed up on the wall that separated the Venetian quarter from the Amalfian quarter, and without too much thought, jumped down inside. He walked across the Amalfian quarter, drew some cautious stares, and duplicated his efforts, jumping on to an awning in the Pisan quarter and receiving a torrent of abuse from a young man with a Florentine accent. He mollified the man by buying an apple.
The Pisans, as he’d noticed a few days before, had a tower by their gate. He climbed the tower – empty at this hour – and looked down into the busy square outside the European quarter.
He didn’t recognise anyone outside the gate.
He passed the Pisan sentry without being challenged, and walked rapidly towards the Hippodrome. He passed the Severan Wall at the first gate and breathed a sigh of relief. The two janissaries at the gate looked at him carefully, but let him go.
East of the wall, he followed the broad main thoroughfare towards the magnificent bulk of Hagia Sophia. He couldn’t see whether he was followed, but the great avenue was packed with early morning traffic to the market north of the Hippodrome, and he slipped from cart to cart, trying to be both invisible and normal. He was the only man on the street in European dress. But he didn’t regret it – he didn’t believe he wore the Turkish dress well enough, and didn’t want to give anyone an excuse to arrest him.
His intention was simple – to use Idris’s morning ride to cover a visit to Bessarion’s palazzo. The groundwork was laid – he had a dagger and a purse with twenty ducats to buy the co-operation of whomever he found on the premises.
And he was going to see Khatun Bengul. He was sure of it. He hoped . . . well, it seemed possible she’d sent the note. Idris, after all, came in person.
A regiment of janissaries was forming on the open ground south of the Hippodrome, as well as sipahis – the elite cavalry of the Ottomans. He was pleased to note that few of the sipahis had a horse as pretty as his mare. He thought of her as his own.
He made his way through the crowd, feeling safer, and walked south around the cathedral and the Patriachate to come on Omar Reis’s palazzo from the east for safety.
He was as cautious as youth and love could make him. But he didn’t see the two faces he dreaded – nor would he have said that he’d spotted any figure, Turkish or Greek, out of place, or two places well separated in time.
The great gate of Omar Reis’s palazzo was shut, but as he approached, he saw the African from the sunrise visit beckon from a postern gate. He walked along the wall, took one last look over his shoulder, and ducked through the iron-studded door.
Something heavy struck his head, and he was . . .
He came to with a soft hand over his mouth.
‘You hit him too hard,’ said a firm voice in Arabic.
‘No, mistress,’ said another voice.
A woman’s hand ran down his shoulder to his arm, and then his chest, which was bare.
