Tears of Pearl

by Tasha Alexander

  “Of course.” He went back to Sir Richard, leaving us alone.

  “I don’t feel hungry anymore,” I said as Colin and I started down the corridor.

  “I’ve not the slightest interest in the dining car.” He stopped walking and pressed me against the wall, kissing me.

  “That’s not what I meant. You’re a beast to kiss me at a time like this,” I said, twining my fingers through his. “Perhaps we should be doing more for him.”

  “A man who can’t properly dose his own medicine has no right to interrupt our honeymoon.”

  “Could we contact his son?” I asked. “I don’t feel right leaving him so alone.”

  “When we get to Constantinople. We’re on a train, Emily.”

  “I had noticed that,” I said.

  “Perceptive girl.” He kissed my forehead. “I do adore your compassion for Sir Richard. But right now, forgive me, I think you should direct it to me, your husband, who by unfortunate coincidence of seating arrangements has been forced to deal with doctors and train stewards all evening instead of being left to his violently elegant and relentlessly charming wife.”

  “Sounds delicious,” I said. “I should have married you ages ago.”

  The two remaining days of our trip passed without further incident. We saw Sir Richard the following evening in the dining car. He was in fine health, full of apologies, and all easy charm for the rest of the trip—no more criticism of our itinerary or of my yearning for adventure. More important, no more signs that he was using too heavy a hand when dosing his medicine.

  “Perhaps he’s a changed man after his near brush with death,” Colin said, gathering the few remaining books strewn about our compartment as the train pulled into the station at Constantinople.

  “I don’t believe in sudden transformations,” I said.

  “That’s because you’re so very cynical. It’s one of your best qualities. You know . . .” He looked around. “I’m almost sorry to leave the train. It’s effortless to lock this door and shut out the world. No house full of servants bothering us.”

  “Just overzealous stewards.”

  “Who were quick to learn that we wanted our privacy.” He ran a hand through the thick, dark waves of his hair. “I think that’s everything. Ready to have the Ottoman Empire at your feet?”

  Excitement surged through me as we stepped onto the platform, and I looked around, eager to take in a culture so very foreign to me. Despite the fact that my guidebook told me it had been designed by a Prussian architect, the Müir Ahmet Paa Station, with its elaborately decorated façade, looked satisfyingly Oriental to me. Bright reddish pink bricks were arranged in rectangular patterns between wide stone borders along the lower portion of the building, the rest of the walls painted pink. Stained glass curved over the doors and long windows, above which there were more, these large and round, fashioned from leaded glass. The center of the structure was low, its sides anchored by taller sections, one with a flat roof edged with stone decoration, the other domed.

  “Where shall we go first?” Colin asked.

  “Meg is perfectly capable of seeing to it that our trunks get to the house. My plan is to get a spectacular view of the city, unless you’ve a mad desire to go to our quarters first.” Meg, my maid, was traveling with us, despite my husband’s protests that he’d prefer we be alone. I, too, liked very much the idea of privacy, but a lady must deal with hard realities, and there was simply no way my hair could be made presentable on a daily basis without skilled assistance. Furthermore, I’d spent a not inconsiderable effort to show her the merits of places beyond England. Her provincial attitude had begun to thaw in Paris more than a year ago, and I had every intention of continuing her enlightenment.

  “If we go to the house first, you’re not likely to see much of the city today.” He pulled me close, his arm around my waist.

  “I cannot tolerate that,” I said, a delightful flash of heat shooting from toes to fingertips. I straightened my hat—a jaunty little thing, devoid of the ornamentation favored by many of my peers. So far as I was concerned, stuffed birds had no place in the world of fashion. I was too eager in making the adjustment, and the tip of my hat pin jabbed into my scalp, causing me to jump, knocking into a gentleman walking behind me.

  “Oh, Sir Richard, I’m so sorry,” I said. “I didn’t see you.”

  “I’m afraid I wasn’t paying attention, either.” A gruff edge cut through his already rough voice.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “Yes, actually. It appears I’ve been robbed. Nothing serious, just unsettling.”

  “What happened?” Colin stepped closer to me and began a methodical study of the area around us.

  “I’ve no idea. When I was gathering my belongings to leave the train, I realized a sheaf of papers I was bringing from London to the embassy is gone.”

  “What sort of papers?” I asked.

  Sir Richard narrowed his eyes, seeming to appraise my competence as I asked the question. “Standard diplomatic fare. Nothing of pressing confidentiality. More of a nuisance and embarrassment to lose them than anything else.”

  “Do you have any idea when they went missing?” I asked.

  “Not at all,” Sir Richard said. “I didn’t need to deal with them during the trip and never pulled them out. It could have happened anytime.”

  “Who had access to your compartment?” I asked. “We should question the stewards at once and try to locate the physician who treated you. We know he was there.”

  “I assure you, there’s no need, Lady Emily—”

  I interrupted him. “Every possibility must be considered.”

  “Have you reported this to the local police?” Colin asked.

  “No,” Sir Richard said, shielding his eyes from the sun. “It’s entirely unnecessary. This may be nothing more than a prank.”

  “I can’t see that making any sense.” I shook my head, harder than I ought to have, sending my already maligned hat off-kilter. “And if that were the case, wouldn’t you have some idea who would do such a thing? Did you have any colleagues on the train? Did anyone even know you had the papers?”

  “No. I saw none of my colleagues. But I’m a diplomat. It’s reasonable to assume I’d be carrying papers. Someone—a Turk, perhaps—who’s less than pleased with Britain could have done it to make a point.”

  “An awfully oblique point,” I said, frowning. “We’d be happy to assist you—”

  “Thank you, but that won’t be necessary,” he said. “As I said on the train, I know well your husband’s reputation, but I assure you this is nothing more than an aggravating inconvenience and quite out of the sphere of his interest. I do, however, hope to be in touch soon with an invitation to something I think you’ll both enjoy.”

  I watched, dissatisfied, as he walked away from us. “We are going back to the train, aren’t we?” Sir Richard might refuse to investigate, but I could not do the same. My experience, while limited, had given me a taste for detecting.

  Colin gave a short laugh. “This is not in the least what I want from a honeymoon, but I know you must be pacified.”

  “Yes, I must.” I looped my arm through his and led him to the platform. He flashed some sort of identification, and within a short while we had conducted a quick but thorough interrogation of stewards and lingering passengers. Our efforts, however, were in vain: no suspicious characters, no overlooked clues, and certainly no breathless confession.

  “I can’t escape the feeling we’ve missed something,” I said when, finished, we crossed back through the station.

  “It’s possible.” Colin took my hand. “But there’s no harm done, Emily. He might have mislaid the papers himself. There was no sign of forced entry into his compartment.”

  “He could have forgotten to lock the door.”

  “He’s too competent to have done that.”

  “Doesn’t it make you wonder about the chloral hydrate?” I asked. “Perhaps someone dosed his
wine, knowing the subsequent commotion would provide an opportunity to snatch the papers.”

  “I understand the suspicion, my dear, but why would anyone go to so much trouble to take something that, by all accounts, is of no particular value?”

  “Perhaps the papers were not the goal,” I continued. “Perhaps harming Sir Richard was, and the theft was meant to set the investigation on the wrong course. We may be dealing with a matter entirely personal, not professional.”

  “We, my dear, are not at present dealing with any matter whatsoever other than enjoying our wedding trip.”

  “I just—”

  “No, Emily. Let this go. Come. The Golden Horn awaits you.”

  2

  Constantinople was like an exotic dream full of spice and music and beauty—the scent of cardamom blew through the streets like a fresh wind—but at the same time, it had a distinct and surprising European feel. The cobbled streets, winding at seemingly random angles through the city, teemed with gentlemen, as many wearing top hats as were in dark red fezzes. Stray cats darted in front of us with alarming frequency, slinking confidently in search of their next meal, while brazen shopkeepers called out, inviting us into stores brimming with Eastern treasures. Noise filled every inch of the air: seagulls crying, carts clattering, voices arguing in foreign tongues.

  Before us, the choppy silver blue waters of the Golden Horn—the estuary slicing through the European section of the city—stood mere paces from the station. Boats tied too close knocked together down the length of battered docks, only the larger vessels meriting the space to stay safely untouched. One among them waited for us, but I did not pause to identify it, heading instead for the Galata Bridge, making my way through the crush of carriages in the road, Colin’s hand firm on my arm. We paused to pay the toll—a pittance—and walked until we reached the midpoint of the pontoon-supported structure.

  “I like being able to see two continents,” I said, watching Colin as his eyes swept the Asian shore far across the Bosphorus from us. “It gives an intrinsic satisfaction I’ve not before experienced.”

  “Seraglio Point, on the European side.” Colin nodded towards the shore from which we’d come. “The spires of Topkap? Palace are there”—he pointed—“and farther this way, the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofya.” The minarets of the holy buildings jutted into the crisp sky with mathematical precision, rising from the crowds of smaller stone structures. Gulls circled and dove, careening around the minarets and then pausing to coast on the air, as if catching their breath before darting off again. Trees surrounded the palace, its far-off buildings the only break in a sea of green.

  “Topkap? looks marvelous, even from a distance,” I said. “Perhaps I shall be kidnapped and given to the sultan and live out the rest of my years there.” A few paces from me, a fisherman pulled up his line and dropped his flopping catch into an already full bucket. All around us, men were doing the same, and the air fell heavy with the oily, salty scent of their bounty.

  “He should be so lucky.” Our eyes met and lingered, and the most pleasant sort of warmth pulsed through me. “But you wouldn’t be—the court is no longer at Topkap?. There’s a new palace.”

  “I could stand here all day,” I said. To our north, the neighborhoods of Pera stretched to the hills, and the Galata Tower, the last remnant of a fourteenth-century fort, stood tall above tier after tier of creamy rose-and-white houses.

  “I’ve other plans for you.” After bestowing upon me a deliciously discreet kiss that in an instant promised untold delights, Colin led me back to the docks, and in short order we had climbed aboard a small caïque rowed by two sturdy men. They moved with a grace I would not have expected from persons so muscular, pulling through water rough enough to make me wish for the stability of a large ship. As the Golden Horn opened to the wide expanse of the Bosphorus, I began to feel queasy bouncing up and down on erratic waves.

  Houses packed the Asian shore as tightly as the European, but as we traveled north, they grew larger—yal?s, mansions built as summer homes for the city’s elite. Some were spectacular, others in distressing states of disrepair, but all came right to the edge of the water, which lapped against terraces perfect for watching the light change as the sun set. Colin had rented one for us that was a vision of romantic perfection: bright white with a peaked red roof and elaborately delicate gingerbread trimwork on the myriad windows, pillars, and balconies gracing the eighteenth-century façade. I stepped, unsteady, off the boat, the fatigue of travel exacerbated by the rough crossing. Nonetheless, I was ready to explore the interior.

  The rooms were leagues more refined and elegant than my villa in Greece and entirely different from the sort of luxury I was used to in England. Overstuffed pillows sheathed in silk covered low sofas, and the carpets were soft and spectacular, Anatolian, with designs of leaves and hyacinths twined together, their colors blending beneath an almost translucent sheen. Even pieces that at home would have been fashioned from simple wood were full of exquisite detail: every table inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ebony. An exotic retreat, full of delicious comforts. We collapsed, exhausted, and slept scandalously late the next morning.

  “Mail at breakfast?” I asked, watching Meg hand Colin a stack of ivory envelopes as I dropped into a chair on our balcony. “It’s as if we’re still in England.”

  “Far from it,” Colin said. I followed his gaze out to the water, where the sun danced across the Bosphorus. Scores of boats glided with breezy ease, showing no hint of the dangerous currents that had wreaked havoc on my stomach the previous day.

  “Hmmm. I suppose you’re right.” As if the view were not enough to convince me, trays of decidedly un-English breakfast foods covered the table: thick yogurt drizzled with honey, pomegranate seeds, sliced fruits I did not recognize, sesame-seed-covered pastries filled with cheese and spinach. I cracked the shell of a hard-cooked egg and sprinkled salt over it. “What shall we do today?”

  “Sir Richard has written to invite us to the palace this evening. Apparently the sultan is an opera fan. There’s to be a production of La Traviata at his private theater. A Western score, perhaps, but dare I hope the possibility of being one of only a handful of European ladies to meet His Eminence and seeing the interior of Y?ld?z Palace might be enough to entice you?”

  Entice me it did, and before the sun had set, we had made our way across the Bosphorus to the theater. Newly built for the sultan, it was gorgeous, though disappointingly European. European, that is, if one ignored the elaborately carved wooden screens that shielded members of the harem from the view of the rest of the audience. But if a person were to focus solely on the rich velvet curtain and ornately gilded boxes, it would be easy to imagine oneself at Covent Garden. Until, that is, the last act, when strains of Verdi succumbed to something wholly out of place.

  “What on earth is this?” I leaned forward.

  “Is it Gilbert and Sullivan?” Colin asked as the composer’s tender notes were replaced by a melody far too cheerful for La Traviata. In tonight’s production, Violetta did not die in her lover’s arms after a heartbreaking separation and lengthy illness. Instead, her consumption vanished the moment she drank a potion handily supplied by an obliging physician. “Do you think anyone’s told Verdi?”

  “It’s The Mikado.” I leaned close and kept my voice low, breathing in the faint scent of tobacco lingering on his jacket as I tried to ignore a tremor in my core that was dangerously close to erupting in loud laughter.

  “Of course. I recognize the song: ‘Here’s a how-de-do!’ Appalling. They’ve usurped Verdi.” Violetta, Alfredo, and this brilliant and mysterious man of science who had made their joy possible joined their voices in an ebullient trio, Mr. Gilbert’s lyrics replaced with ones appropriate to the new and theoretically improved scene.

  “Only think what we might accomplish had we access to this sort of miracle cure,” I whispered, flipping my opera glasses closed.

  Sir Richard, seated in the row behind us, leaned forward. �
�The sultan has no patience for unhappy endings. And when one who is the absolute ruler of an empire—a man claiming both secular and spiritual control over people who, technically, are little more than his slaves—has no patience for something, it is forbidden.”

  I bit back laughter and glanced across the spectacular theater to the royal box, where Abdül Hamit II sat, nodding, an enormous smile on his face. Next to him was Perestu, the valide sultan—the sultan’s mother—the most powerful woman in the empire. Her petite body still showed signs of the beauty she’d possessed in her youth, and although many of the women in the harem were said to have adopted a Westernized sort of dress, Perestu clung to traditional outfits that were at once elegant and, to European eyes, exotic. Tonight she wore a long, slender dress fashioned from green silk, heavily embroidered with gold thread, wide sleeves hanging over her wrists to her fingertips, a short-sleeved, sheer black robe covering the gown. Her long dark hair hung in two braids down her back, and on her head sat a headdress, reminiscent of a small fez, draped in muslin, an enormous ruby pinned to its front. Rings graced each of the fingers on her henna-painted hands. Her regal bearing surpassed any I’d seen before. Behind the royal pair, four menacing guards stood against the back wall, their thick arms crossed, no hint of amusement on their faces.

  “ ‘Here’s a pretty mess! / In a month, or less, / I must die without a wedding! / Let the bitter tears I’m shedding / Witness my distress,’ ” Colin sang under his breath as the applause faded after the curtain fell. “The proper words are much better.”

  “Agreed,” I said, slipping my arm through his and dropping my head onto his shoulder as we made our way out of the theater. “I prefer Violetta’s untimely demise to this happy ending.”

  “Bloody unromantic of you.”

  “I’m a beast, you know,” I said.

  “It’s why I married you.” We’d stepped outside, falling behind the sultan and his entourage. The night was warm for spring, the air heavy with humidity and the sweet scent of flowers. Above us, stars dangled, so dazzling bright that I felt certain they could compete with the moon. “Now, if we can just slip away before—”