‘Here’s another blue-dyed soul. See for yourself.’
She stared up at the huge man, saw the dark blue stains on his straggling beard and the blackened fingers and nails and dark bruising that was not indigo dye at all and congealed blood on his face and arms, realised then what Mehmi meant. This was a dyer – or had been a dyer not that long ago. He stared back, taking in the blue stains where flesh showed at her neck and wrists.
‘Well lawks-a-massy-me! Who’s this blue boy, then?’
Mehmi understood that. ‘Another waif and stray.’
‘Weer’s yer fun ’im, then?’ He saw the baffled look on their faces and laughed. ‘No use gawming at me. It’s Dai yer be wanting, A reckon. He’s inside sorting out weer we’re goin’ to put oor ’eäds.’ A jerk of the head towards the portico. ‘We’ve ‘ad a right set-to wi’ them baändits yer fayther talked on. We giv’em a good wapping but we didn’t come off unscaäthed.’
Mehmi clutched at the name he recognised. ‘Dai?’
‘Aye. Inside. Mebbe.’ He scratched at his beard. ‘A’ll ’ave to remble these beästs afore we et but A’ll tek you to ‘im. Coöme on.’ He used his big hand to wave them on with him into the shadows of the high-arched inner courtyard. ‘Is Dai aboot?’ he yelled over the din of voices. Edgar turned his head.
‘Not here. Gone to see about the meal. It’s Friday,’ he said, by way of explanation.
‘So it is. Fish daäy,’ he told them, ‘and altar-boy here weän’t et meät on a fish day. A’m not right fussy, meself, theëse daäys, and theer’s no God’s man aboot to tell A’m bound fer hell. A knows that anyroad. A et what belly-timber A can get. Coöme on, ya two.’
Blue led them back into the courtyard. The new-arrived caravan was streaming through the high gates into the huge courtyard and the air was full of the shouts and calls of the muleteers and cameleteers and the calmer directions of the han staff, used to the commotion, even the arrival of a large caravan like this one. They mounted the platforms ready to unburden the beasts. The mules were snorting and stamping and braying, sensing fodder and water. Steam was rising off the flanks of the animals; they’d come a distance that day. The camels were bellowing and limping at every step. It was the end of a long day.
The kitchens were busy. Dai was outside the entrance talking in his slow, careful Turkish with one of the cooks, a small dark man with his long beard in two plaits tied behind him and a cloth turban wrapped tightly round his head. He was rubbing at his chin where the strands of the beard parted, nodding solemnly. His hands and arms were marked with the faded red and puckered skin of old scalds and burns. Beyond them, the shadowy vaulted rooms of the kitchens glowed with the fires from the great hearths. There was a glimpse of huge blackened cauldrons crouching on the embers of the fires, hissing and bubbling and steaming, teasing all who passed by with tantalizing, mouth-watering, belly-rumbling aromas of spices and herbs and meat and vegetables and fasulye.
‘There’s good then,’ they heard Dai say. ‘Plenty even without meat. Pilav with butter. Beans, fresh and dried, cooked in olive oil and spices. Now there’s riches. Smells good. We’re ready for it, I can tell you.’ He swung round at the sound of Blue’s voice. His face was flushed with the heat of the nearby tandoor ovens. ‘Blue! Are those beasts stabled and the goods lodged?’
‘All’un saäfe, Dai.’
‘Well done. You be going now to the bathhouse. Take Rémi with you. That’s a big caravan coming in – there’ll be no chance for you once those men start crowding in.’
‘A’ll do that, gladly, but look, A’ve brought yer foölks.’
Dai focused on the two behind the big man. He raised his eyebrows at the sight of them.
‘Thowt that would gi’ yer summat to think on.’ Blue was gratified. He went whistling away, first to collect Rémi then to the bathhouse in another effort to scrub and pumice the dye out of his skin and nails and ease the aches and pains from his battered body.
‘Mehmi! Welcome! But what are you doing here?’
‘Father sent me. He says I’m to go with you, if you’ll have me. You can’t be more astonished than I am. To give me leave to go like that…’ His voice shook. He stopped, recovered. ‘And here is someone who has been searching for you. He arrived at our gates just in time for us to keep him safe from the bandits. See – a little blue brother for our painted man.’
His hands on her shoulders pressured her forward so that she was standing in front of the brown man.
‘This is Kazan. He comes from the Karakeçili tribe you visited. He was away with the men but he wants to travel with you. He’s had enough adventures on the road these past few days to keep us entertained to the end of the journey.’
She braced herself for the dark eyes focused on her, searching like sunlight over the great plateau, seeking out all that was hidden. He was suddenly very still, very silent. He was studying her closely and she held her breath, feeling herself exposed before him, as if he knew her secret.
‘Wel, Kazan, you are welcome also. You both have adventures to tell, it seems but later, after we have eaten. For now, Mehmi, if you would find the han physician I’d be grateful. He’s tending to Tom Archer and stitching up our guide’s son. Giles is with him. Find out what is happening, how serious their wounds are. Tell him I’ll be there as soon as I can. We had a run-in with Kemal’s bandits but it’s later we tell our stories, isn’t it?’
Mehmi hurried away towards the archway where the han physician had his room. She was left alone with the brown man.
‘So, you thought to come with us?’
‘Yes. If you’ll have me.’
He was frowning, pulling at his lower lip. Now that the gaiety of his greeting was gone, he looked tired and under the flushed brown skin there was bruising down the side of his face visible even under dark stubble.
‘I am skilled with a bow and arrow. I can track and hunt. I am the best of my tribe. If you meet with more bandits, I can be useful.’ She looked up at him then, fixing her eyes defiantly on his. ‘Mehmi and his father said you asked no questions.’
‘That’s true.’
‘You think I have something to hide?’
‘I’m certain you have plenty to hide.’
‘You are right,’ she said, ‘but Mehmi said you all have secrets. There is nothing for which I have need for shame. I have a good reason for wishing to make this journey. To travel with you to Attaleia and then across the sea to the cold lands to find my grandfather. That is what I wish.’
‘Wel, not so much to wish for now, is it?’
‘And I want to rescue the boy who saved me from Fat Vecdet the slave trader.’
‘By yourself? Or is it that we are to help you in this rescue?’
She glared at him. ‘Kara Kemal did not mock me. He gave me a bow and a quiver of good arrows and a horse because mine was stolen when I was captured—’
‘Captured?’ His voice sharpened.
‘Yes, that is what I said; by that fat man, that donkey Vecdet, and the boy Niko helped me escape. I have sworn to rescue him.’
‘I see.’ The brown man was thoughtful. ‘These are adventures indeed.’
‘The mare – the piebald – is for you. Her name is Yıldız and she is indeed a star. She is a gift from Kara Kemal. I am to tell you she is a bride-gift and that there is always room for faith.’
‘Did he say so? Well! This is a day of wonders, Kazan, and it’s the better off I am for a gift-horse, though the old man can ill afford to part with any of his beasts, and the better off for two new companions. A singer-poet and a champion archer and a star of a horse.’ He was smiling, though his dark eyes glittered, but the relief that flooded through her vanished at his next words.
‘Come. With all those adventures you must be tired and hungry – and as much in need of the bathhouse as our big friend Blue.’
The bathhouse. Here were new dangers that she had not thought about. What a fool she was, thinking herself so clever, so well disguised.
/> Dai frowned, watching the crowd of dusty tired men.
‘The latrines are over there as well – the latrines for the men.’ He paused. ‘Maybe we should go dirty tonight. What do you think, Kazan? It will soon be time for the evening meal and I am hungry. So must you be. Are you content to sleep dirty tonight? Or must you be bathed and in clean clothes for Friday Prayers?’
He was smiling in a way that was kindly, waiting for her answer, because he knew. She realised that now. He knew, but he was giving her the choice of lies or truth and reminding her of what she had been foolish enough to ignore. Worse, it had never entered her head: the hamam, the latrines, the desperate need for fresh clothes, the question of where she would sleep amongst all these men and, of course, the Muslim Friday evening prayers and she a Greek Christian. She was a fool, a fool to think for one moment she could live the lie. A fool to think she could hide the truth from this man whose eyes searched out the deepest secrets. There was a long silence that lengthened and lengthened. It was she who broke it.
‘You know.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘Yes.’
‘Mehmi did not.’
He was silent again then said, ‘Mehmi did not see you at the summer dwelling,’ and she nodded, accepting it.
‘What now?’
‘I’m still waiting for you to tell me. Dirty to bed? Wel, you could wash your face and hands or…’
‘Yes?’
‘We could go late, together.’
Her face flushed crimson, bright as the springtime poppies, remembering the man under the waterfall and his nakedness. Were all men made the same?
She saw dark colour rushing up the man’s throat as well, into his brown cheeks. ‘Wel now, not exactly together. I was meaning we could ask the women for help. Soon the hamam will be closed to men and the women staff will take over. There are some travellers who are female. They, too, will wish to bathe. We can ask the hamam women for help.’
‘They will despise me.’
‘I think not.’
‘You must despise me – think me a fool.’
‘I think you have great courage and must have good reason for what you have done. No, you do not need to tell me. I keep many secrets.’
‘Will you tell your men?’
‘That’s up to you.’
‘You’ll take me on trust?’
‘As Kara Kemal would say, there’s always room for faith.’
‘He was right. He said you would help me to rescue Niko and find a ship that will take me to England. He said you were the very man I needed to help me.’
‘Did he indeed? What else out of all these many words did the old man say?’
She blushed, remembering. ‘That you could help me to my heart’s desire.’
‘Wel now, that might be more difficult. Let’s deal first with the little matters of rescuing your slave and getting you to England – and before that, and most important, bathed and fed. Come. It’s wishing us away from here they are. They need to set out the evening meal. Butter rice tonight and fasulye. I like that very much. Isn’t it remarkable, that they can feed such a company night after night and so well? And we pay for nothing. Now there’s good, isn’t it?’
He was walking her towards the physician’s room. ‘I must see that Rashid is well enough – our guide’s son, a good boy and sorely wounded. His father is anxious. And there’s Twm Archer with a knife wound in his arm. You remember him? He came with me to the camp. Mehmi has not returned and…ah! Here he is. Wel, Mehmi?’
‘Rashid’s wound is grave but the physician has cleaned it and bound it with salve. If there is no fever, he should be well. He’s sleeping now. The physician says come later. Thomas’s wound is not serious. A flesh wound only. But he is very angry. He says he should have expected the blow.’
Dai sighed. ‘Always he is like this after a set-to. He will recover his spirits, and better if left alone a while. Rashid, though…you say he’s sleeping?’
Mehmi pulled a face. ‘Part sleep, part the darkness that comes with pain. His father is with him.’
Dai pondered. ‘I would like to see him, all the same, and his father. Then Kazan and I need to bathe. Ask Edgar to call all the men together for supper. And where is Rémi? I have need of him.’
‘He’s gone with Blue to the hamam.’
‘So he has. Well, no matter. I hope he’s left his good set of clothes behind. Come, Kazan.’
He led her first into the physician’s room, a quiet place with an arched and vaulted roof like all the rooms in this great han but here were herbs strung from hooks and stoppered glass jars of potent mixtures. The physician was a tall, lean man, seeming all the leaner for his white robe and long beard. He was an Arab from the countries further east and knew his craft well.
‘A grave wound, yes, but the boy is young and strong. If there is no fever and no inflammation he should do well enough.’ A physician’s answer, always hedged with ‘if’ and ‘but’. ‘The wound was clean when he was brought here. Was that your doing?’
‘Yes. My patron knew a physician – famous he was in his town of Ieper and he was trained in the ways of the east and in battle. He always said a wound must be kept clean, isn’t it now.’
‘Indeed. That was well done.’
‘My man said he’s sleeping now?’
‘Yes, though somewhat restless. That’s only to be expected.’
‘Is his father with him?’
‘Yes – though I wish the man would take some rest, some food and drink. That would do him more good than sitting by the boy.’
‘I’ll have words with him.’
Heavy fabric divided the apothecary’s room from the treatment room and an area where there were two truckle beds. Rashid lay pale, his head bandaged and his face white and drawn. He muttered and murmured and turned restlessly. His father was hunched beside the bed, equally white, equally drawn.
‘How is it now, Amir?’
‘He is alive.’
‘It’s a pitiable sight. I would not have had this happen for the world.’
‘You did all that was possible, master. The boy was determined to prove himself.’
‘He was very brave, Amir. You should be proud of him.’
‘And I am, master, I am.’ The man’s mouth worked. ‘What should I tell his mother?’
‘Wait and see, Amir. All will be well and all will be well and you will take him home for his mother to praise him and scold him as she did when he was only a dwt. But you – you must come now, leave him to sleep. You must have rest and food or you’ll be no good to him when he wakes up. Isn’t that right, Kazan?’
She nodded. ‘Indeed it is. Dai is right in this. You must look after yourself if you are to take proper care of the boy. Look.’ She rested a hand on the boy’s forehead. ‘His breathing is good and he has no fever. Later he will need you but now you should do as Dai says. Food, drink, rest and then return.’ She spoke with the same authority Nene had used and the man responded to it. He nodded slowly.
‘Yet it doesn’t seem right to leave the boy alone. If it’s all the same with you, master, I’ll come back and stay with him through the night.’
‘Of course. And I’m thinking you must stay here with your boy tomorrow.’
‘It’s my job to take you safe back to Attaleia, master. I’ve sworn to do that.’
‘Your son is of greater importance, Amir. He needs you. But don’t worry now. We’ll think about tomorrow when tomorrow comes. Go and have your supper. I’ll stay here in your place.’ He glanced towards the girl and saw her nod. Of course the man would not leave his son unattended.
‘I can’t let you do that, master.’
‘Of course you can.’
But there was no need after all. Edgar came in quietly, smiling, apologising for his presence but he wondered if perhaps Amir would like to eat now, sit with his son later. Edgar? He would eat later. He wasn’t hungry now. Tired but better for the hamam. If Dai didn’t go now it would be too late…
She followed Dai out into the courtyard. This quiet brown man, he was used to command, she thought, but mindful of his men. ‘Will you let the father stay?’
‘Of course he must. He’d be no good to us, worrying all the time about his son. Better if he stayed and we had a new guide. The journey is easy enough from here.’
His voice was matter of fact, business-like in the way of the merchants from the western countries but she had seen the flicker of concern in his eyes. He cared about the boy and his father, of that she was sure.
He led her into the great inner hall, its high vaulted roof vanishing into shadows. Windows were black slits against a sky already darkened. There were torches in sconces high on the stone walls that cast flickering light and shade and shadows that crawled along the ground. She shivered.
‘Have you stayed before in a han?’
‘Never. I have never before entered such a huge place. So many stones and so little sky and only one way in and out.’
He glanced down at her. ‘It must be strange after your tent.’
‘The yurt is for summer. In winter we live in houses, but not like this.’ She shivered again. This was how wild animals must feel, trapped in dark places. ‘Yes, it is very strange.’
‘We’re in the dormitory – only the rich and important have their own rooms. The sleeping cubicles are narrow – space enough for two sleeping ledges. I’m sending Rémi to sleep with Blue. You,’ he said as if it were of no importance, ‘will sleep in my space.’
‘With you?’
‘Unless you prefer to sleep in the women’s quarters?’
Always, it seemed, he gave her a choice that was no choice. ‘With you,’ she agreed.
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