Kamil Pasha: The Sultan's Seal Part 29

I nodded yes and let my head rest beside hers, our eyes on the heavens. The moon had become a small, hard disk the color of alloyed gold. A wild dog barked nearby.

Violet put a gla.s.s of tea beside Mary and handed another to me, then withdrew into the shadows of her cubicle. I could see only the red eyes of the charcoal peering out of the brazier below the steaming pots.

49.

The Floating Stage Sybil sits s.h.i.+vering on the platform, holding the lamp. Her clothing is disheveled, hastily thrown over her wet body. Her throat is hoa.r.s.e from shouting. Her eyes keep scanning the walls.

Sybil looks up at the eunuch. He is sitting just outside the circle of light, eyes closed. She wonders what kind of life eunuchs live. It is said they are powerful, but this man's shoulders are thin, his face a grim mask. His large hands are laced together in front of his knees.

"Arif Agha," she calls, thinking he might respond to his name.

He doesn't answer, but she sees a flicker of white under his lids.

"I do wish you'd say something. I think you can understand my Turkish. Can you speak English?" Exasperated, she adds, "Look, we have to get out of here. Parlez vous Franais?"

Speaking in French reminds her of her visit to Shukriye Hanoum. She had found her story appalling but somehow fantastic, as though Shukriye were a character in an Oriental opera. She thinks wryly that she too is now an actor in a potentially tragic play, an Englishwoman and a eunuch trapped on a floating stage. She finds herself laughing. The eunuch's now-open eyes register surprise and, she fears, disapproval.

I'm being hysterical, she thinks, and forces herself to stop. Another look she has seen in the eunuch's eyes-malevolence-puts her on guard. She moves closer to the boat.

Suddenly she remembers where she has heard Arif Agha's name before.

"You're the one who told the police about the British woman Hannah, about the carriage that picked her up."

She isn't sure in the dim light, but thinks the eunuch grimaces.

When he doesn't answer, Sybil murmurs, "They never found who murdered her."

She peers at him suspiciously through the deepening gloom. It occurs to her that Mary worked for Perihan, and that Arif Agha had probably encountered her as well. Sybil wonders where retired eunuchs go. Arif Agha seems to have retired in plain sight.

"Another young woman was killed recently, Mary Dixon. Did you know her too?"

When the eunuch still doesn't answer, Sybil forces herself to stand and walk toward him, her hands held out before her in a conciliatory gesture.

"Look, Arif Agha, I don't care what happened. All I care about now is getting out of here. We have to help each other or we'll rot in here." She stumbles over the Turkish word for rot. "No one will find us here. We'll starve."

When she is an arm's length away from Arif Agha, she stops.

"If you're worried about getting in trouble, I can help you. When we get out of here, I'll take you to the magistrate of Beyoglu and you can talk to him, tell him what you saw. The police will be grateful if you help them. They won't hurt you. I promise." Sybil is aware of the duplicity of such a promise, which she has no way of keeping, but she needs Arif Agha's cooperation or, at least, his goodwill. She wonders anxiously whether the danger from the eunuch isn't as great as being trapped in this underground chamber.

She decides to make small talk, both to keep his attention and to keep her rising fear under control. "Have you been in Asma Sultan's service a long time?"

With a strangely distorted, high-pitched squeal, the eunuch scuttles backward like a crab and crouches at the far end of the platform.

"I can see why you'd be afraid of her." She looks upward at the now-dark sky. Suddenly animated, she moves closer to the eunuch and says, "I have an idea. I think I can protect you against Asma Sultan. I'm a friend of her daughter and other important people. I can make sure someone takes care of you." Smiling, Sybil spreads her hands. "I'll tell them you saved my life."

The eunuch uncoils himself in a sudden violent movement and leaps at Sybil. His mouth is stretched wide but emits only a strangled sound. With her arms, she wards off his hands groping for her neck. As they struggle, the lamp illuminates their faces. At the back of the pink cavern of his mouth is a lump of scar tissue. His tongue has been cut out.

The lamp rolls into the water. Sybil screams into the darkness.

50.

Barely a Sound When Mary next looked at me, her eyes were like coals. She blinked and s.h.i.+fted her gaze around the platform.

"It's so dark. It's hard to see." She pushed herself laboriously up to a sitting position, then to her feet. "I'd like to go home. I don't feel well."

I got to my feet and took her elbow. "What's the matter?" I peered into her face.

"I don't know. I can't see." She shook my hand away.

"You're getting a chill. Have some more tea." I signaled to Violet that she should refill our gla.s.ses.

"I can't move my arm." Mary's speech had become slurred, with a hysterical undertone.

She staggered away from me, her foot knocking over her tea gla.s.s. The moonlight caught the edge of Violet's kaftan.

"Violet, come and help me. Mary Hanoum is ill." I realized suddenly that the carriage wasn't due to return for us for at least another hour and the village was half an hour's walk away.

I heard a splash behind me and swung around. Mary was gone. I raced to the pool, knelt on the boards, and looked over the edge. The obsidian water reflected rocking shards of moon.

"Bring the lamp," I shouted. I turned and climbed into the water. The light of the lamp made the surface more brilliant, but revealed nothing beneath it. I struggled through the pool, fighting my billowing clothing, my face against the water, feeling beneath the surface with both hands.

"I'll find her."

I looked up. Violet's lean brown body trailed a black shadow across the walls. She slid beneath the surface with barely a sound.

51.

The Ming Vase Bernie pulls on the reins.

"Why are you slowing down?"

"I thought I heard something."

The night is alive with animal sounds, sudden trills, fish falling into the water just beyond the road. An owl hoots from the forest.

"There it is again," Bernie whispers. An odd cry, faint as if m.u.f.fled.

"It must be coming from Asma Sultan's villa," cries Kamil. "There's no other house near here."

Bernie swings the phaeton around, whips the horses, and thundering back down the road, they halt at the gate and jump out.

"Let's get the lamps lit so we can see better."

"The gate is locked." Kamil clambers up the ilex that covers the wall like a green mantle. He reappears on the other side of the wrought-iron gate and unlatches it.

The iron creaks as they push the heavy doors open.

They move quickly down the carriageway toward the house. Kamil pushes open the unlocked front door. Washes of light dart across the walls as they move through the entry hall and down a corridor. They emerge in a room so vast that their lamps pick out only patches of parquet floor and the bases of man-width marble pillars.

"This must be the reception room," Kamil notes.

Bernie's lamp moves off and is soon lost in the gloom. Kamil hears a crash of crockery. Suddenly the air jumps with shadows as Bernie lights a gas lamp on the wall.

"Holy Mother of Jesus!" Bernie stares at the shattered object on the floor.

"What is it?"

"A Ming vase. I've never seen one that big before. It's priceless."

They look around. The room is hung with enormous gilded mirrors that multiply the illumination. Swags of colored gla.s.s chandeliers hang from the ceiling.

They pause, listening carefully.

"Nothing," Bernie says finally.

"She must be in this house somewhere. We should be quiet, in case the others are still here. We'll have the advantage of surprise."

"The h.e.l.l with that," Bernie says, and shouts, "Sybil."

52.

The Eye of the Pool I was in waist-deep water tearing at my clothes when Violet's head emerged beneath my legs.

"Where is she?" I cried. "Why haven't you found her?"

Violet lifted herself onto the platform with her muscular arms, her body streaming with water. "She's stuck in the net."

"Allah save us! Can't you get her out?" I scrambled onto the platform to better take off the ballooning trousers that hindered me from submerging enough to join the search.

She moved rapidly to the pile of her clothing and returned with a short knife. Her body sliced into the black skin of water.

I removed the last of my clothing, held my breath, and flung myself in after her. My hands scrabbled about in the darkness like crabs. Handfuls of sand. Under the floorboards, even the moonlight disappeared. The slimy rope sc.r.a.ped my palm. I held fast and, tucking my foot into the net behind me, began to crawl sideways along it. When my breath gave out, I pushed off to the surface to get air. My foot twisted in the rope and I struggled to free it. Suddenly, powerful arms wrapped themselves around my chest and pulled me loose.

"Get out of the water and watch for her from up there," Violet demanded, thrusting me toward the steps. When I tried to return to the water, she warned, "If she dies, it'll be your fault. I can't take care of you both at once. You'll do more good up there. Hurry up."

Shaking, I climbed onto the platform. I hunched tensely by the side of the water, scanning the surface for signs of movement. Violet was gone a long time, and I began to worry that she too was caught in the net. I rocked back and forth, naked in the lamplight, uncertain what to do. I heard my voice, keening a prayer between chattering teeth. At last Violet's head appeared.

"She's gone. I don't think it's a good idea to bring her body up here."

I began to climb into the water again. "She must still be alive."

Violet blocked my way. "I've seen her. It's too late. She wrapped herself up in the net. I wasn't able to cut her loose."

"Allah protect us," I cried, struggling to get past her. I had seen the dead, but this was a death that I fully possessed. Violet's arm circled my waist and anch.o.r.ed my flesh to the wooden boards. When I had exhausted myself with struggling, she let me go.

"What should we do?" I knelt by the side of the pool, blinded by tears, by the lamplight. Violet's eyes were in darkness, but I could sense the intensity of her gaze.

"We can let the current take her," she said matter-of-factly, as if she were disposing of kitchen leavings. "No one will know where she died or how. By morning, she'll be frolicking with the dolphins in the Marmara. But we'll have to get her farther out where the current is stronger."

Frolicking. I couldn't decide whether to be appalled by Violet's levity or absurdly comforted by the image of Mary, golden hair streaming, riding a dolphin like a Greek deity.

"We have to call the police," I said numbly. "Ismail Dayi will know what to do."

"And tell them what? That three women were alone at night in an abandoned sea hamam and one died? How are we going to explain how she died? They'll blame you, you know."

I looked up at her. "Why me? It was an accident."

"They always blame the weakest person. The cracked vessel shatters first." Her face, lit from below, was distorted by the lamplight.

I rocked back and forth, eyes on the black window of water.

Violet submerged again. After a while, her hands pushed a shoe onto the platform, then another, Mary's skirt, s.h.i.+rt, and undergarments. I crouched by the pitifully small pile.

"The clothes would make the body float," she explained, gasping, climbing out of the water. "I couldn't get the jewelry. I'll try again." The bracelet of woven gold from the Bedestan where we first met. The silver pendant I unclasped in childish greed from Hannah Simmons's neck and gave many years later to Mary, who adored Ottoman jewelry. The necklace of a drowned woman was clinging to Mary, who had suffered her same fate.

Appalled, I stayed Violet with my hand on her thigh. "Leave it."