“You are, Admiral. The Tsar just requested it, personally.” Every gesture, every inflection of hers was rehearsed, deliberate, perfected.
“Hmm? So he did. Yes. Personally.”
“You’re terribly kind, Your Highness, I’m honoured and greatly comforted by your offer of protection and assistance.”
“Speak nothing of it, Madame. I’m delighted to accompany you and restore you to your husband...”
“Blavatsky.”
“Blavatsky, quite right.”
Cream-painted double doors opened at the end of the long corridor, and two men emerged. The older gentleman was in a dark brown suit, with a Homburg he restored to his head as he walked. The younger man’s suit was almost yellow, and he sported a black bowler. They were too far away to be overheard, but she watched their lips. English.
“How’s your Russian, son?” asked the older man.
“Might recall some cusswords from that station agent back on New Archangel, Mr. Colt,” replied the other.
“How’s your read on the situation, speaking generally?”
“You’re the businessman, sir, but it certainly piqued their interest, and it struck me as a deal in the making.”
“That it is, Mr. Billings,” said the first man, who turned his back to Celeste, so she couldn’t see what he was saying. Both men laughed, and she made out the name “Norton.”
“Madame,” said Menshikov, presenting his arm. She took it, and they went to approach the two men down the hall. Guards snapped into line behind them.
“Gentlemen!” the Admiral called out to them in English. The removed their hats and took their measure of the small, elderly man, propped up with gold braid and a magnificent woman in a pearl-grey gown.
“Admiral,” bowed Colt. Menshikov made appropriate introductions, with repeated bowing and hand kissing, and Celeste massaged any discomfort in protocol on the part of the two Americans. She was at once the hostess, and all fell instantly at ease.
Menshikov had mentioned his interest in the airship, and of course had been offered a tour by Colt. When there were gaps in the Prince’s English, Celeste translated and maneouvered the conversation into the possibility of passage via the Celerity to Sebastopol, at which Colt leapt and beamed with pride.
“Your assistance is most gracious, gentlemen,” Celeste offered. “I do so hope you’ll not tire of my company in such a prolonged journey.”
“Prolonged, Ma’am? There are no prolonged journeys aboard the Celerity, I assure you,” replied Colt. At this, Billings winced–he hoped not obviously–at the memory of the Aleutian crossing. “It’s some 1300 miles to the front. Won’t take us a day.”
“Astonishing!” she exclaimed genuinely. “But isn’t the airship vulnerable to attack from the ground?”
“Worry not, Ma’am,” assured Colt. “It’s much easier to drop something from two thousand feet up than it is to throw something that high. She’s well-protected, I assure you. We’ll get you to Sebastopol, safe and sound.”
“Thank you, I can’t tell you what a relief that is to hear. When shall we depart? Is your business here concluded?”
Colt and Billings looked at one another, and decided that it was.
Menshikov had made some inquiries as to accommodating a guard of some twenty men, and was astonished to hear that two hundred would also be of no consequence. Celerity’s cargo being unloaded as they spoke, the expansive bays of the ship’s hold would be at the Prince Admiral’s disposal. They would make preparations to depart after breakfast the next morning, and upon that agreement, made elaborate farewells and exited in various directions.
The main floor staff had their reservations regarding misplacing Celeste, for however brief a period, but seeing her on the arm of septuagenerian Prince Menshikov assuaged them. He insisted on sharing his carriage and delivering her to her apartments, but only in the most grandfatherly way.
Throughout the carriage ride, as with her encounter at the palace, Celeste’s demeanour was poised and calm. Yet beneath the surface, her heart was racing; her mind scrambling for some clue, some telltale sign of what Grigori was up to, a whisper away from the Tsar.
What haunted her the most was the memory of the monk’s oily, insidious smile.
THIRTY SIX
Eleanor had been under the impression that they were to stop in Jerusalem, but instead she had watched the Durrah’s shadow stretch along the walls and streets of the ancient city; grey stone against a dun countryside, with flashes of green groves against dry hills. The sun dazzled off a gilded dome, and for a moment she forgot her mission, her destination, and wanted nothing more than to walk on firm ground again, to wander those streets and explore the marketplaces. Perhaps it was just seeing the place from the air, but she was enchanted, and vowed to return.
She had seen Abbas, the Wali, only twice more, after leaving the skies of Jerusalem. Each time, she grew in simple fondness for him. There was something childlike, innocent about the man in her presence, but she wondered if, in his role and duties, that such traits could (must?) be denied, turning even to cruelty.
Her Arabic had improved, although Abbas had refused to speak it with her, and she could now read as well as any schoolboy. So too had certain tenses of French which had previously eluded her. One evening, to entertain the other women, she read to them in Greek, from the poets. Others played music, or sang, but of Eleanor they asked only that she read, and then only Plato or Homer, after which there was much discussion.
While she knew the harem was a gilded cage for the women, she knew too that it offered a peculiar opportunity for education, and that on the ground, or outside the Wali’s service, few girls would even be taught to read. She found this thought heartbreaking. She was reminded how Sinjin told her that it was her love of books, her ability to escape into reading, that first attracted him. She thought of the scent of his hair while he slept, and the lines around his eyes, and even the suppressed smile she would catch on his face when she was undressing. Her heart ached. All those nights sharing a bed, her heart hammering against her chest, breathing in the scent of him, he had never reached a hand towards her. He had kept faithful to whatever vow he’d made to her father, or to her priest, or to his distant love, and the thought of his steadfastness made her want him even more. Which made her more the fool.
At this, she would sit up in bed, heart pounding, and no tears coming though she would not banish them. She had taken to sleeping with one of the other girls, for warmth or for company, and in their sleep had admired their beauty, their serenity, the exotic colour of their skin.
The day had gone much like the others. She bathed, brushed the hair of one of the women while another brushed hers. She read, practiced her Arabic, ate, chatted, memorized cards, and looked out the window. The horizon had brought her the sunset behind her, and Constantinople ahead.
Boats against the walls of the city, bathed in brass light. Churches and domed mosques and obelisks, more even than she’d noticed in Alexandria. They were still above the Sea of Marmara, but the light gave an otherworldy detail to the vista below.
An hour later, Eleanor was in her Paris suit, and had placed her parasol upon her carefully made bed. There was no time to negotiate the return of her blade, though she wore the sheath beneath her sleeve. She was aware they would not land until dawn, but she would keep vigil; she would stay awake, count seconds, disembark, and find him as he had trusted her to do, relied on her to do.
And it really was as simple as that. Before dawn, she made her way down to the lower decks, where the kitchen staff and the young Muhammed were busy preparing waste to be disposed off and bins cleared for provisions, crew packed for leaves to be taken, and the mooring was silent and seemingly effortless. She stepped off the Durrah just before dawn, the balloons above the ship shielding her from the drizzle, and followed the white-shirted crew into the wide open doors of a portside warehouse. She strode up the center aisle defined by stacks of crates, columns of barrels and bundled bails of goods straight to
the back of the building and to an ancient wooden door, which pulled inward from a fat iron ring. And there, on the doorstep, as she expected without knowing how, was a soaking, unshaven and haggard-looking Avery.
He smiled up at her in the rain.
“Been waiting long?” was all she said.
THIRTY SEVEN
Blake awoke to the crunch of the marching zouaves on the gravel past his tent. The summer heat had already began to warm the canvas when a young private knocked on the outer post and entered with a tray. Coffee, toast, a selection of envelopes, basin of hot water.
“Where’s Corporal Landau?” asked Blake.
“Infirmary, Captain Blake, sir. Took ill in the night, sir.”
“Is he all right?”
“Don’t know, sir. Don’t go in there, m’self. He’s got the thirst, sir.”
“Bloody hell. All right. I can see myself dressed, thank you, Private.”
“Sir,” saluted the young man, and left.
The thirst. So many had gone through it, or rather, it had gone through them. It began with a fever, then an insatiable thirst as the men lost control of their bowels. The stench was unbelievable, like rotting fish, and brought Blake back to the train station upon their arrival in Bulgaria. If you could keep enough water in them, a little more than half survived. Otherwise, they’d be dead in a day, and it had picked through perhaps a fifth of the men, leaving them down two in ten. Blake, however, had little doubt as to Landau’s chances. He’d seen the man hale and hearty just that previous evening, when he’d helped him dress for another one of mad Cardigan’s punitive meals.
He washed and dressed, scanning through the papers for anything urgent, and mercifully there was nothing he could postpone. He thought he owed Landau priority, see if there was a letter to family to send off, that sort of thing.
As he approached the infirmary tent, he resisted the temptation to cover his face with his hand. The foul air of diarrhea and vomit wafted in the morning heat. Blake approached the doctor, an aging Scotsman in a butcher’s apron with a sheaf of papers in his hand. He was rattling off instructions to a weary orderly.
“I say, doctor,” Blake interrupted, “have you seen my man Landau?”
“Landau?” repeated the doctor. “Landau, Landau. Right. Corporal, yes?”
“Yes, thank you. Where shall I find him?”
“Out back, I’m afraid.”
“Out back?” Blake was puzzled, but the doctor disappeared before clarification could be offered. Blake wandered around the length of the tent, mindful of guy-wires. By the time he’d rounded the last corner, he saw what the doctor had meant.
Stacks of swathed bodies in filthy linen were lined up in rows ahead of trenches being dug. Blake could make out the tops of shovels, the spray of rocky earth, and occasionally a kerchiefed head of a gravedigger. The breeze toyed with the tattered shrouds, as though moved by the breath of the dead. Landau, healthy the previous evening, had fallen to cholera before breakfast. Blake staggered back.
One expects death in war, he thought. But not this. Not like this. Of the forty thousand men in the English camp, some eight thousand graves without a single shot being fired. Dispirited, he returned to his tent.
Later, seeking the company of officers, he found their fate was even worse. Nearly eight thousand dead of the thirst, another three thousand with such ghastly diarrhea they had to be shipped back to Constantinople. They were down almost twelve thousand men. At this rate, the Russians could crush the brigades by simply avoiding them until Christmas. Blake felt as though he’d be carved from lead. Every table-jape skirted past him, inquiries after his health left unmet, food without taste and wine disappearing without his remembering a sip of it.
It took a newcomer at mess to rouse him from his depression: an Irishman from the Times, Russell. It was the wooly-bearded reporter who had prodded Blake to excuse himself and walk the camp with pipe in company.
“I understand, Captain, that we’re to be back at sea in a day or two,” offered Russell.
“Are we?” asked Blake distantly. “Hadn’t heard.”
“Oh yes. I was out with Lord Raglan’s steam yacht just yesterday, looking for a place to land on the peninsula.”
“Crimea? But what of Silistra?”
“Have you not heard? The Russians have abandoned the siege. The Turks held with less than two dozen men lost, and the Russians have withdrawn back across the Danube. The French are there now to re-supply the city. It’s over, and we’re off to Sebastopol.”
“And you were there? With Raglan?”
“Quite so,” replied the Irishman. “Kalamata Bay, says on the map. He spotted a Russian patrol ashore, and waved his hat to them.”
“Good heavens. And what did they do?”
“Waved in return, Captain. Seemed terribly civil for a war.”
“The cholera seems remarkably less so.”
“I’m sorry, Captain. I understand you lost your man today.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“I’m a reporter, Captain. Wouldn’t be much use if I knew what was going on, would I?”
“You did say you were with the Times. It hardly seems a pre-requisite,” countered Blake.
“Well, that’s fair enough. But what I report and what they print are creatures often unfamiliar to the other.”
“Not to be indelicate,” said Blake after a moment, “but may I assume from your accent that you are of the Catholic persuasion?”
“I am proud to be so, sir.”
“My man, Landau. Corporal Landau. Is there some way a service can be arranged on his behalf?”
“Certainly, sir. I’ll see to it that my parish priest back home says a Mass for the lad, if you’ll send me his Christian name.”
“I would be much obliged if you would. Is there a fee for such things?”
“Never a fee, Captain. More along the lines of enforced charity, if you take my meaning.”
“Very good, I’ll see to it that an appropriate sum be forwarded along with pertinent details. I’d just like to see the man cared for in a way suitable to his family. I owe him that much.”
“Happy to be of service, however sad,” said Russell. By that time, they were at Blake’s tent, and the weariness of the day, and impending arrangements, set upon his shoulders like a great chain. With a nod, and a point of his now-extinguished pipe at the reporter, he silently excused himself to his canvas.
THIRTY EIGHT
Constantinople from the air, lit by sunset, was a marvel in bronze in and purples. At dawn, with Sinjin on her arm, Eleanor found it to be an endless crumbling grey, strewn with refuse of every manner imaginable. Scraps of odd hinges rusting in the street next to butcher bones, and rags, rats and excrement. The Times had always referred to Turkey as “the sick man of Europe”, but here she found that the capital had passed sickness into death. While the city was not under siege, unless one counted the torrent of allies to and from the front, the few residents who did not scurry away from her looked starved, lost, defeated.
The rain had subsided, and Eleanor could not fail to notice that Avery, who once stood for her to be of every accomplished quality, seemed somewhat shabbier by her absence. The smell of his sweat at least masked the odour of the streets. This was no Alexandria with its proud, immaculate citizens, bright market-goods, and dizzying history. This was a tomb, freshly looted.
As to their time apart or the nature of Avery’s disappearance they made no mention. The simply walked together, although the priest’s stride was less firm than she remembered. He was clearly exhausted.
“I’m afraid,” she broke the lazy silence between them, “that our things have been forwarded to the Consul in Jerusalem. I had them sent there before I received your,” she paused momentarily, reaching, “message.”
He looked at her and smiled weakly, patting her arm. It was apparent that she needed to take action, and presently.
“There must be a European quarter, here. Or somewhere for of
ficers and their wives. Not a barracks, though. An hotel.”
Again, Avery nodded, as though it troubled him to speak. He led her block after disintegrating block through the labyrinthine streets, just as the city was coming to life; cart-donkeys and couriers, fishermen on their way to boats, runners for the various officers camped in and around the capital.
At each prospective haven, they were turned away. No room at the inn, again and again. Constantinople was packed to overflowing with French and English and Sardinians, each wanting the comfort of a hot bath and a sprung bed.
“Sinjin,” she said, “you must have contacts here. Your Order. The church. Think.”
As if in a fog, he gazed at the street for a long moment.
“Yes,” he murmured. “Quite right. I do apologize, I’ve not been entirely myself, as you can see. My appearance must be most unsettling.”
“Not at all, my darling Sinjin. Let’s just get you situated.”
He led her on, this time with more determination. He was rallying, and this lightened her heart.
After some twenty minutes and a gradual climb up the hills of the city, they came to a long stone wall, and set within it, a narrow door, arched and set with broad Gothic hinges. It bore no knocker or handled, but a stout iron keyhole.
Avery placed his left hand against the door’s weathered oak. From the folds of his riassa he drew a long, heavy antique key, placed it in the lock, turned it with some force, and pulled it towards him. The door swung open, albeit reluctantly.
“Have you been here before?” asked Eleanor.
“I’m not certain. I don’t believe so.”
“Where on earth did you get that key?”
“You know,” he said, “I have absolutely no idea.”
They entered. It was a chapel, hardly wider than the door, she observed although that was an impression largely brought on by the gloom. There was no light, save for an open door to the vestry, that must have had a window behind it.
The sanctuary had long been denuded of anyplace to sit. The floor was of paving stones, heaved at angle from the grey earth, and led to a short platform that housed the altar, Catholic in ornament. A wooden crucifix of some pale wood, or faded paint, hung sadly behind. Avery walked to the vestry while Eleanor closed the door to the street.
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