by Roberta Rich
“It will be impossible to get through the crowd in a carriage. Let us go by foot.”
Several streets later, they encountered the parade. “Isaac, how will we find them?”
Hand in hand, Hannah and Isaac squeezed through the crowds, ducking past the various guild floats, including the chalk-makers’. The men riding on top of the wagon were crunching chalk in their hands and using handfuls of it to whiten their faces. A band followed in their wake, playing eight-fold Turkish music.
A cart lumbered by, drawn by massive draught horses pulling the silversmiths and their forges. Which of the many floats would Matteo insist on seeing? The carpenters building a wooden house? The bricklayers raising a wall? The silver thread-spinners? The saddlers? The felt-makers? The confectioners’ guild that flung their sugary delights into the crowd—Lips of the Beauty, Hanum’s Finger, and Ladies’ Thighs?
Thousands of people were milling about, mothers holding babies in their arms, fathers carrying children on their shoulders. She spotted a red-haired boy, arms extended to catch a piece of marzipan thrown from the confectioners’ float. Her heart nearly stopped. But he was an older child, five at least, and not as handsome as Matteo.
A mime spotted Hannah and Isaac rushing through the forest of people and followed them, stroking his beard in imitation of Isaac. Isaac tossed a coin at the man, trying to get rid of him, but it only encouraged the mime and soon he added ribald gestures to his act.
They pushed and shoved, Isaac shouting for people to move aside. It was too much movement, too much, too fast. She stood for a moment to catch her breath.
Isaac pulled her arm and they raced along the Street of the Armourers, side-stepping a cart piled high with cooked sheeps’ heads. In the distance was the blue expanse of the Bosporus. Now Hannah had a stitch in her side. She cursed herself. Just when she needed all of her endurance, she seemed to have none.
“Are you all right?” Isaac asked, slowing.
“Of course,” she said. “I am fine.”
Hannah pressed her fist into her side, grabbed Isaac’s hand, and carried on.
CHAPTER 24
Circumcision Day Parade The Old City Constantinople
CESCA HAD NOT wanted to steal Matteo from the only mother he had ever known any more than she had wanted to kill Leon, but God had ordained otherwise. She walked along Caddesi Selçuk. And there in the distance was Foscari, waiting at the simit seller’s, just as arranged. What greater proof did she need of God’s approval? She approached him, dragging Matteo by the arm. The boy was exhausted from excitement over the wonderful sights of the parade.
“Hello, Foscari,” she said, taking in his handsome face and the thick hair that had grown too long and now curled over his collar. “You are looking well.”
“As are you.” Foscari beamed at the boy and said, “We shall see some marvellous sights, you and I. Perhaps the sponge divers’ float? Or maybe the confectioners’? You look like a boy who enjoys sweets.”
Matteo grinned, clearly fascinated by Foscari’s silver nose. Cesca smiled brightly and stared at it too. It was as though his silver nose were a fortune teller’s crystal ball in which she could see her future. There was her villa in Maser, with its apple orchards, rich pastures, and honey-coloured cows. Since that evening at the embassy, everything had fallen as neatly into place as pleats in a silk dress. The dower money had dropped from the heavens into her lap. The absurd divorce had saved her the trouble of murdering Isaac and claiming his paltry estate—a trivial loss. Cesca had bigger fish to catch. She had Hannah’s hundred ducats, an enormous sum. She was free to sail to Venice. And Matteo could keep his precious blanket, thus avoiding a tantrum. They would all be reunited soon enough at the docks. The villa would soon be hers.
Cesca paused a moment, deciding how best to phrase what she was about to say next. “Foscari, there has been a slight change in my plans. You’ll be pleased to hear that I can sail with you after all. And soon,” she added. Without Isaac as her husband, there was no reason to remain in Constantinople. It would be a relief to go to Venice, where she could understand the language. She would not have to pretend to be someone she wasn’t, constantly vigilant lest she make a slip and mention the Virgin Mary or eat cheese with a piece of roasted meat, or violate some other preposterous dietary prohibition.
Cesca spoke in a low voice so Matteo would not hear. “I shall look after the boy during the voyage.”
Foscari did not look as pleased as a man should look at the prospect of several weeks of a beautiful woman’s company aboard a small ship.
“And the blanket? Where is it?”
“Where it always is, in the boy’s pocket.”
“Very well then.” Foscari studied Matteo for a moment. “Such a handsome little trot. Quite the image of his father.” He held out his hand. “Let me see that blanket I have heard so much about.”
Matteo backed away.
Cesca bent down to him. “It’s all right, my son. You do not have to give it to him now.”
To Foscari, Cesca said, “Don’t worry about the blanket now. You’ll frighten him. We’ll have plenty of time for that later.
“You be a good boy, Matteo. Enjoy the parade and don’t leave the Marquis Foscari’s side. He will buy you any treats you want.”
The boy finally lost his shyness and spoke. “But Mama gets angry when I eat too much lokum.”
“Today is a special day, and you can have anything you wish. I will meet you later for a special adventure.”
“All right, Mama Grazia.”
“I shall meet you at the embassy later,” she said to Foscari. “You will purchase passage for me?”
“Yes,” he said. “Of course.”
Cesca kissed Matteo and told him to be a good boy. Then she left to reclaim her valises from where she had hidden them and take them to the docks.
An hour later, Cesca marvelled at her own stupidity. What use had Foscari for her with both the boy and the blanket in his possession? She raced down Caddesi Istiklâl toward the Venetian embassy. She had trusted him simply because he had promised her the villa. She must be more calculating if she was ever to become the owner of a grand villa. But—perhaps it was not too late.
Cesca fought her way to the embassy, past floats, squeezing through the crowds. By the time she finally saw the Venetian flag, the golden lion on a field of red flying high over the walls of the embassy, she was faint from the heat. She hurried up the street, praying to see Foscari ordering his servant, Kamet, to load his valises onto a porter’s cart. Then they would all proceed together to the docks.
Cesca pulled on the bell at the entranceway, not a tentative jerk like last month but a desperate tug. No one came to the door. Kamet was probably in the garden, out of earshot, or helping Foscari to pack. She yanked the bell cord harder. The two guards on either side of the doorway turned to glance at her and then looked away, no doubt amused by her appearance, her hair coming unbound, her mud-spattered skirts. They were tall and fierce-looking and wore black turbans. It had been a different pair altogether when she had been here before.
A yellow street cat wandered over and sniffed at her shoes. She hissed at it and it slunk away. At last, she heard footsteps and the door swung open, framing a tall, fat Nubian wearing a blue turban. This slave had whiskers that grew down the sides of his face. It was not Kamet.
He waited for her to speak.
“I wish to see the ambassador. Will you tell him Grazia is here?”
“The bailo is not in residence, Madam. He is in Venice on business and has been there for several months.” The servant spoke in the Venetian dialect.
Did he mean that Foscari had already departed for the docks? No. He clearly said the ambassador had been away for months. “That is not possible. I saw the Marquis Foscari a few hours ago.” The Venetian flag flapped in the wind above her head like the sails of a ship.
“The ambassador is Andrea Ridolfi, and I assure you, Madam, he has been gone for many months. Perhaps you mea
n the embassy of the Franks on the next street?”
The impertinence of the servant took her breath away. “You brainless creature. I am talking about the bailo Foscari—tall, well-proportioned, and wearing a silver nose. He has a little boy with him. Fetch him at once.”
“I have been serving here for many years and know what goes on under this roof.” He moved to close the door. “There is no man here with a silver nose, ambassador or not.”
“What of Kamet? A Nubian servant who wears a yellow turban?”
The slave paused, holding the door halfway closed. The guards in the entranceway sidled closer to Cesca, making her uncomfortable.
“Kamet worked here for a short time but was relieved of his duties some time ago. Where he went, I do not know.” The slave wiped a rivulet of sweat from his brow. “Good day.”
Cesca found herself staring at the closed, heavy oak door of the embassy. She hammered on it with her fists until the two guards on either side ordered her to stop, and she gave up.
She turned and walked down the street, a wide one filled with carriages and flanked by mansions. What did it all mean? Was Foscari not the ambassador? She was filled with rage and humiliation. When she caught up to him, she would make him pay. She would see him hanged as the mountebank he was. She strode along so rapidly she tripped over a sleeping dog in the road and fell to her knees.
A liveried servant from an adjacent house helped her to her feet. “Tell me,” she said to the servant. “Have you seen a man with a silver nose, coming and going from that place over there?” She pointed to the flag fluttering over the embassy.
The servant shook his head. “I am out here in all weather. Never have I seen such a person.”
She continued on. The muggy air and the mud on her skirts weighed her down. Her thoughts went in crazy directions as she tried to make sense of the situation. She was certain the Medusa had not yet sailed, but suppose Foscari planned to sail on a different ship? Suppose she arrived at the Medusa and he had not bought passage for her? What if Foscari alone claimed Matteo’s fortune?
No. She would not have it. She could buy her own passage. After all, she had her hundred ducats. She reached into the pocket of her skirt where she had carefully placed a thin silk wallet. She fumbled desperately for it. The wallet was gone.
CHAPTER 25
The Hippodrome Constantinople
MATTEO HAD BEEN plucked from the earth. Nowhere in the crowds outside the Hippodrome could they find him. Hannah and Isaac entered the stadium, the oval race course built centuries ago by the Romans for horse and chariot races. Ancient monuments still remained in the middle of the track: the Obelisk of Thutmosis III, hauled all the way from Egypt, as well as the Serpent Column, both of them taller than the mast of a ship.
The noise of the firecrackers in the arena was so overwhelming that at first Hannah did not hear the voice behind her. But then it came again, high-pitched and insistent. She felt a tug on her sleeve. It was Mustafa shouting above the clip-clopping of a cavalcade of solemn-faced Janissaries on horseback.
“Hannah! I thought it was you. Come with me. The Valide will be delighted to see you … and to meet your husband.” He turned to Isaac and bowed slightly. “You must join the Valide in the Royal Kiosk.”
“It is a great honour, Mustafa,” Hannah said, breathlessly. “But we cannot.”
Isaac explained. “Our son has disappeared. We fear he has been kidnapped.”
Mustafa looked alarmed but did not ask for more information. Instead, he said, “All the more reason to see the Valide.”
Hannah and Isaac exchanged looks. He was right. If anyone could help them now, the Valide could.
Mustafa took Hannah by the arm and Isaac followed close behind. They hurried through the crowds toward the far end of the Hippodrome, where the Royal Kiosk had been erected high above the open field so that the Sultan and the royal family could preside over the entire event. “You can see everything from the Royal Kiosk—the acrobats, the wrestlers, the magnificent floats of the goldsmiths and arrowsmiths. The Kiosk is so high, you might even be able to spot your little boy,” Mustafa said.
Mustafa, Hannah, and Isaac climbed the stairs of the Kiosk, ascending higher and higher above the crowds and confusion of the parade.
When they reached the top, Hannah felt dizzy and held on to Isaac’s arm. It was as though she were a swallow looking down from far above onto a miniature city below. Surrounding the Royal Kiosk were nahils, gigantic artificial trees made from a framework of balsa wood and decorated with fruits and flowers, human and animal figures, even models of ships, all of which were fashioned from beeswax. Some nahils stood as high as the minarets of Hagia Sofia. Private homes had been demolished to make way for these imposing structures as they were carried aloft through the streets by a hundred Janissaries.
Sultan Murat III was seated on a gold cushion at the front of the Royal Kiosk. He watched the parade as the one thousand and one guilds of Constantinople marched past. He did not notice Hannah and Isaac entering because he was busy throwing gold coins to his pages and the other young men passing below. The Sultan looked no more handsome than he had the night of Leah’s make-believe couching, but he seemed to be making an effort to appear benign, rather like a fierce grandfather trying not to frighten timid grandchildren. God forgive her for this thought, but his large middle draped in a girdle of diamonds reminded Hannah of the elephants in Venice that Christians decked out for Lent celebrations.
Near him sat the Valide, veiled, her shoulders not touching the back of her gilded throne. She wore a shimmering red kaftan, which made her black hair look even darker and richer. On her hand was a ruby the size of a sheep’s eyeball. Safiye sat on the Sultan’s left with little Ayşe on her lap. Safiye touched her husband’s hand, but he brushed it off on the pretense of reaching for a glass of sour-cherry sherbet offered by the Superintendent of Sherbets, a portly man who in spite of the unseasonably hot weather was wearing a great deal of silk and fur and velvet.
The smell of roasting meat drifted up from the ovens in the square below. During the celebrations, the palace fed the public twenty roasted oxen a day. Before the oxen were cooked, live foxes, jackals, and wolves were sewn into the oxen and then released in front of the crowds. When they bounded out from the carcasses, the spectacle caused much hilarity and more than a little panic in the crowds.
Mustafa rushed ahead, approached the Valide, and whispered something in her ear. The Valide turned. She nodded at Hannah and Isaac and beckoned them forward. Thankfully, in the small confines of the Royal Kiosk, subjects were not required to drop to their knees and crawl.
“How lovely to see you, Hannah,” the Valide said.
How difficult to read the thoughts of a face hidden behind a veil, even a veil as diaphanous as a silk moth’s wing. The Sultan, to Hannah’s relief, continued to take no notice of them. Hannah took the Valide’s hand, kissed it, and pressed it to her forehead.
“I am delighted to see you. And this, Your Highness,” she said, turning to Isaac, “is my husband.”
“I have heard a great deal about you, Isaac. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
Isaac bowed low but knew well enough not to take her hand, nor did she offer it.
“Mustafa tells me you have lost your son in the crowds, Hannah.”
Hannah looked gratefully at Mustafa, who was standing, dignified and silent, behind the Valide’s throne.
“We are so worried. I have no idea where to find him.” She was afraid to say the worst—that she feared Grazia had taken him with her on a ship bound for Venice.
“I shall help you search for him.”
How exactly would she be able to help? There were so many people in the Hippodrome, it would be like searching for a gold coin in a sack of wheat.
“The Kiosk is heaped high with gifts of every description—crystal, Chinese porcelain, Syrian damask, Indian muslin—all thanks to the Sultan’s viziers, Kurdish beys, and foreign ambassadors. Somewhere in this pi
le of trinkets is a spy glass.” She turned to Kübra, who was standing in the corner. “Would you find it? The one from the Venetian ambassador?”
Kübra disappeared with a bow and a moment later returned carrying a long, cylindrical brass instrument that would have looked more at home on the deck of a brigantine than in the delicate hands of the Valide.
“Try it,” the Valide said, passing it to Hannah. “You hold this end to one eye and close your other eye.”
Isaac stood at her elbow, anxious. Hannah did as instructed. As if by magic, all things in the distance appeared closer and sharper.
Gradually her eyes grew accustomed to the strange magnification, which was like peering through a goblet of water held up to light. She saw a troupe of wrestlers rolling on the ground, their bodies slick with oil. She saw dancers and fire-breathers and a man leading a string of zebras tied together like black and white beads on a necklace. She saw the carpenters’ float—watched as the joiners erected a small wooden house on the immense wagon.
And then, stretched high between the Obelisk of Thutmosis III and the Serpent Column, she saw a thick hemp cord. Two acrobats wearing thin, leather-soled shoes walked along the taut cord, starting from opposite ends, intending, Hannah surmised, to meet in the middle. One of the tightrope walkers carried on his back a charcoal brazier. An audience had gathered underneath them, clapping delightedly. It seemed that as part of their act the acrobats planned to cook a meal while balancing on the tightrope.
Hannah felt a rush of excitement. Was it possible that Matteo had seen the tightrope walkers and even now was watching them? Hannah was certain—this is where she would find Grazia and Matteo.
“Your Highness, I have a feeling you may have helped us find our son. May my husband and I be excused?”
“Of course you may,” the Valide said. “Good luck, Hannah.”
Hannah raced for the stairs, realizing even in her state of panic how rude it was to turn her back on the Valise. She called over her shoulder, “Come, Isaac!”