Thief's Tale

by Turney, S. J. A.

  Lykaion almost staggered back into the kegs, the colour draining from his face as the full impact of what the two men had revealed hit him. Even Skiouros looked shocked. The Sultan? Who would even consider moving against the most powerful man in the world? Surely not Cem? The failed usurper was said to be imprisoned by the Pope of Rome and the Sultan paid him good money to keep it that way.

  "I know you, Bin Murad" the Mamluk sneered. "There is nothing that gives you more pleasure than killing. Your reputation after the battle of Yenisehir carried even to Mamluk ears."

  "The Sultan is an affront to all good Turks!" Bin Murad spat. "He dilutes our city and our empire with heathen Christians - ones that don't even have to convert to stay here - and twisted Armenians and…" he paused to spit on the floor again, "even Jews. The money lending filth are starting to take over."

  The Mamluk's nostrils flared, but he folded his arms once more and nodded sagely.

  "My own sultan allows these Coptics and Jews in our cities, but they have their place, even if they peddle their heathen ways. Anyway, I am not here to argue religion and race with you. I very much advise against any further meetings until the deeds are all done."

  "We will meet any time I deem it necessary" Bin Murad snarled. "And we are safe here with my men surrounding us. But there is one more thing, before you go."

  The Mamluk narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "A problem?"

  "Hardly. One of my Janissaries knows of the murder and is on the run in the city: Hussein Bin Nikos. We will catch him soon enough, though. I have a bounty on his head that would make his own mother turn him in, and he is accused of the very deaths that he reported."

  "Careless, commander. You should have had him executed."

  Bin Murad bridled. "Just leave it to me. I only mention it at all out of courtesy."

  "Perhaps I can help" the Mamluk replied, scratching his chin. "One of my Fida'i is done with his mission. I shall set him onto your fleeing pup. Let him take his knowledge to the grave."

  For a minute Bin Murad stared at the Mamluk as though dumbstruck, but finally he nodded his assent and pointed to the door through which he'd entered.

  "Go back to the Bucoleon and stay out of sight."

  The Mamluk - Qaashiq - bowed curtly and turned, striding away from the room. The brothers, wide-eyed and pale, looked at each other in disbelief and turned back to the narrow viewing gap just in time to see commander Bin Murad's temper snap and the officer lay into a keg of powder with his bare fists, pounding on the wood and raising a faint cloud of black dust as he worked out his fury on the container.

  Skiouros tugged at his brother's sleeve and pointed to the side aisle. Lykaion nodded, and the pair padded as quietly as they could towards the church's outer wall, any noise they made being masked easily by the raging of the Janissary commander.

  Quickly, they moved into the aisle and then along the line of arches and frescoes until they were sufficiently distant from the centre to breathe easily.

  "What now?" Lykaion asked in a whisper.

  "You tell me? This is too big for us."

  "I didn't mean that. I meant getting out of the church. We can't use the front door, but I can't climb that again."

  Skiouros smiled wearily.

  "Thought of that." Leading his brother to the end of the aisle, he rounded a couple of corners and gestured to a small, heavy wooden door, held fast with a lock and with a beam across it.

  "You lift the bar and I'll deal with the lock; then we'll be in the garden out back."

  Lykaion sagged with relief and reached up, lifting the heavy beam and crossing to the wall, where he carefully and quietly stood it on its end against the plastered surface. By the time he'd turned back, Skiouros already had the lock dealt with and was replacing some dubious tool in his belt pouch. As the thief gently inched the door open an icy blast hit them, whipping up a cloud of black dust from the floor that alarmed Lykaion enough to make him barrel out of the doorway, propelling his brother before him.

  The huge porticoed courtyard garden that had belonged to the church had gone to wrack and ruin, the water system broken and weeds running riot throughout. Despite the neglect, however, the place was still structurally sound, and the columned portico kept its roof intact, surrounding the forgotten flower beds, fountains and lawns. While it did nothing to keep the chill wind away, it kept them nicely shaded and covered.

  "What now?" Skiouros asked in a nervous voice. "Don't suppose you feel like that trip to the harbour yet?"

  "We do nothing until we've had time to think and to work this out" Lykaion replied, leaning against a column. "We go back to your rooms, unless you think your landlord or neighbours are likely to try claim that bounty?"

  "None of them know who you are or even that you're there, and I've not used father's name in many years." He gave an aggravating smile. "Besides, we Greeks stick together. No one would sell a countryman out."

  "I think you overestimate the pride of our people, Skiouros. But let's go anyway. I feel the distinct need for a rest somewhere warm. Now get us out of this cloister."

  Chapter 6 – Observations and their consequences

  * Cuma (Friday) evening *

  Skiouros glared at his brother, his gaze packed with indignant impotence. Lykaion ignored him and kept his own eyes locked on the door of the Bucoleon palace as though he could bring forth their quarry by will alone.

  The brothers had exchanged few words that morning and through the afternoon, and the longer the uncomfortable silence grew, the more difficult it became to break it.

  After the revelations at the Nea Ekklasia church the previous evening, the pair had returned to Skiouros' room, where they had begun a frank discussion as to the options available; a discussion that had rapidly become a bloody-minded argument as the brothers refused to compromise and repeatedly gainsaid one another.

  The subject of the argument had not been the options open to them, per se; half an hour of thought and discussion had easily narrowed down their available options. There was no one in authority they could go to with the problem, no way they would be able to gain access to the agha or the Sultan to warn them of the danger they were in, and no feasible way to try and prevent the coming murders since they had no idea where the three assassins could be found. Add to these stumbling blocks the fact that the Janissaries were actively hunting Lykaion and had now been joined in the task by one of the assassins, and doing anything at all was becoming a life-threatening option. The only clear possibility was to maintain their watch on the Mamluk and hope that it would lead them to something useful. It was, simply, the only path available if they wanted to investigate the matter any further.

  And there was the crux of the matter and the cause of the row.

  Skiouros simply could not comprehend how his brother held any further interest in the matter. He had returned to arguing for the course of flight, offering to pay for and secure the passage himself to any safe haven Lykaion cared to name - even a Muslim one. Anything to get him away from this mess.

  The fugitive Janissary, however, refused to move from his position. To flee was not only dishonourable, cowardly, and low, but was also permitting agents of an enemy nation and an exiled traitor free rein to continue their campaign of usurpation against the Sultan.

  It was hard to argue with Lykaion's logic, certainly. That the Sultan Bayezid the second - The Just - deserved the murder planned for him was not something even a devout Christian could claim, and certainly not Skiouros, who had no real enmity towards the ruler, despite the gulf in cultures. And the agha of the Janissaries - a man Lykaion claimed to be of the highest honour and valour - whatever he was like, had to be a preferable man to have in charge of that elite unit than this traitorous Hamza Bin Murad. Even if it came down to simple nationality, Skiouros had to admit that the Greek population of the empire would experience a new age of terror and pain if the Mamluks were to gain any influence in the running of the empire. Lykaion was correct in everything he said, with one gla
ring exception:

  It did not have to be their problem. Their mother and father had gone, the farm no doubt swept up by one of the local Ottoman landowners, and so the only kin the pair had in the city was one another. Neither of them had any career or property to save, now that Lykaion's military life was effectively over. When it came right down to it, Skiouros couldn't actually name anyone other than his brother in the city who he counted as a friend. There was nothing, as far as he was concerned, to keep them in the city. They could watch the implosion of the Ottoman world from a safe beach in the west.

  The honour angle was hammered again for a while, and Skiouros had to admit that it felt uncomfortable leaving things to fall on their countrymen, but his counter-attack was, once again, their impotent inability to do anything about it.

  Which was why, in Lykaion's opinion, they had to return to watching the Mamluk and not seek to flee.

  And so the argument returned to its root and began the cycle again.

  By the time the pair slept, they were hoarse with argument and as angry as at any meeting they'd had over the past half decade. It was only as they lay down in the blankets, Skiouros on the bed and Lykaion on the floor, that it struck Skiouros just how loud they might have been in the throes of fury and consequently the danger in which they had placed themselves.

  Then this morning, when the argument had lulled and there was that precious opportunity to lay it to rest and reconcile, a fresh disagreement had arisen over Lykaion's intention to take his sword out into the city. Skiouros had flatly refused to countenance the idea, arguing the certainty that the sword would be impossible to hide effectively about his person and therefore the very high likelihood of the pair ending up in the clutches of Lykaion's former comrades. The younger man had threatened not to lead his brother through the city's backstreets to the Bucoleon, but Lykaion had pointed out that he now knew the way. The matter had only been settled when Skiouros stated vociferously that he would not open the Pharos tower's door for them if Lykaion insisted on such an idiotically dangerous path.

  Not long after dawn, and still seething and flatly refusing to speak on the matter, the two had made their way once more to the Pharos tower by the ambassador's palace and settled in on the first level's parapet to watch for the architect of this whole nightmare.

  The morning wore on in silent and angry monotony.

  This session of observation had seen a change in the assigned Janissaries, though still of men from the same orta on rotation, and therefore presumably as culpable in the matter as those being replaced. Around noon a figure had emerged with the appropriate Janissary escort and, though he was not the Mamluk, Skiouros had watched him with interest and curiosity. Dressed in a heavy sheep skin coat and felt hat, huge, furry boots and leather belts with hanging pouches, the man sported an untidy beard and wild hair. The high, angular cheek bones and slight incline to the eyes suggested one of the Nomadic tribes from Asia and, having heard the members of the Golden Horde referred to as yellow-skinned, he decided that the fellow in the warm, functional clothes must be the Tatar ambassador. Other than the change of guard and the interesting easterner, however, the day had been one of excruciating dullness, marred even further by the overhanging air of discontent.

  In the early afternoon, Skiouros had disappeared up into the city near the great hippodrome, where a man selling koftes and salted breads took the opportunity to seriously overcharge his non-Turkish customer. Upon his return, Lykaion had taken some of the bread and meat and eaten without a word.

  And now, as the light began to fade once more and the sun slid into the Propontis, making its waters glow red and casting a bronze shimmer across the horizon, Skiouros had spent so long being silent and glowering that he actually coughed and wheezed with a crackly voice as he tried to talk. He moved sharply back from the parapet and reached for Lykaion, who was leaning back against the wall, giving his tired eyes a break.

  "What?" snapped his brother, quietly.

  "Something's happening" hissed Skiouros, pointing to the palace, out of sight over the low stone battlements.

  Lykaion was suddenly moving and the pair leaned into the parapet and gazed down on the door of the palace.

  The peasant Skiouros had seen approach the doorway, and who had prompted him to disturb Lykaion, was standing patiently waiting, shifting from foot to foot as though nervous about being where he was. The young boy was perhaps nine or ten years of age, dressed in the dirty, colourless rags of the innumerable beggars of the city. One of his arms was gnarled, twisted up in front of him, and it swayed involuntarily as he moved.

  "It's just a beggar" hissed Lykaion.

  "It's a beggar visiting the main door of the palace for foreign ambassadors! That's not normal, surely?"

  "True" conceded the older brother, peering down. "He must be something to do with the Mamluk."

  As the pair watched, their arguments forgotten in the face of this development, the door of the palace swung inwards and a Janissary guard appeared. Lykaion knew from experience how the guard felt about the peasant beggars of the city, regardless of their race or creed, and the suspicious nature of the arrival was only heightened when the beggar handed something to the Janissary and received a coin in return. The beggar said something quietly to which the guard nodded and, retreating inside, closed the door. Outside and once more alone, the boy secreted the coin about his person and then started back along the street towards the hippodrome and then right uphill to the bulk of the old city.

  "Come on…"

  Skiouros frowned. "What?"

  "We might as well follow him. Whoever he is he knows something."

  Skiouros shook his head. "He just delivered a message. That was a scrap of paper and there's no way that boy could read and write."

  "But he can still talk" Lykaion replied ominously.

  "We can't follow him."

  "We have to."

  Skiouros grabbed Lykaion's hand and held it up to the dying rays of the sun.

  "Look at that."

  "What?"

  "Your hand; your skin. You're as pale as me. You might have served with the Janissaries for years, but you're still a Greek to look at. How far do you think you'll get sneaking through the streets after a beggar while there's a price on your head all over the city?"

  Lykaion bridled. "Then you lead. You keep getting me between Phanar and here safely enough!"

  "That's different, brother. There you're in the Greek enclave, port areas and the industrial streets down near the water. People just don't notice strangers there, as many of them are killers and thugs. That beggar's headed into the heart of the Ottoman city. You won't last five minutes."

  "Well there's nothing else happening. Are we going to sit here for days in the hope the Mamluk shit makes an appearance?"

  Skiouros' eyes flashed angrily.

  "Not if I can help it. I'm still for taking ship before I end up riding a pointed stake in the Blachernae dungeons. Death by Ottoman torture is not high on my list of priorities."

  "I am not leaving."

  "Then if you're set on this course, we're going to have to find some way to blend in better than we do. I know a few tricks. It's heading towards freezing now the sun's gone down, so let's go home and then tomorrow we can disguise ourselves a little and come back. That way we can try a pursuit if we get the opportunity. But not now."

  Lykaion glared at him for a long moment and then nodded. "Phanar again, then."

  "Come on."

  By the time the two brothers had reached the familiar street in the Greek enclave, the sun had disappeared entirely and the streets were lit only by the silvery shimmer of the moon in its icy, crystal sky. The wind blowing up the thoroughfares from the Golden Horn was bone-chilling, and the pair were grateful to reach the security of the wooden tenement.

  Entering the room, the brothers threw off their cloaks, despite the cold that breached even the house's walls and shutters. Skiouros added to his list of requirements the theft - or more likel
y the purchase, given his brother's disapproving presence - of more blankets for the room, and possibly even a cushion or two. Perhaps tomorrow he could add a trip to Balat and the house of Judah Ben Isaac to his plans? Apart from retrieving the money for such purchases, it would also be nice to have in pocket the funds to cover a passage to Crete, should Lykaion suddenly see the light.

  Gritting his teeth at the whole mess, Skiouros lay on his bed, watching his brother wrapped in blankets on the floor, and wishing that just for one moment he would stop being so bloody-minded and arrogantly superior. He was still pondering how like their father his older brother was when he fell into an exhausted and deep sleep.

  It wasn't the creak that woke Skiouros. Some strange God-sent inner sense snapped his eyes open just in time to hear the first deep groan of the board. Hardly daring to breathe, he lay still and silent, listening intently for confirmation. It came a moment later with the slightly flatter tone of the second step giving under a light foot, probably in a soft leather boot.

  By the time the third step gave the barely-audible squeak that indicated an unaware climber had placed his foot centrally on the board, Skiouros was sliding soundlessly out of bed and reaching for his doublet that hung on a wall peg near his head. Stepping lightly across the room, he crouched and grasped Lykaion's shoulder.

  His brother's eyes shot open in a panicky manner, his mouth opening to cry out in alarm just as Skiouros' hand closed around it, the index finger of his other hand coming up to his lips in a 'shushing' motion.

  Lykaion, his expression betraying his confusion, sat up and stared as Skiouros mimed someone climbing stairs in a sneaky fashion - with slowness and great care, his hand raised as if brandishing a knife. Pointing at the door behind which the stairs descended, he handed Lykaion's doublet to him and began to pull on his boots.

  Still listening for the tell-tale squeaks, creaks and groans, Skiouros stepped past the bed and carefully, quietly, pushed open the window shutters. A hiss from somewhere on the stairs bore the very distinctive sounds of a blade being drawn. Now, Lykaion was with him, sheathed sword in his hand, fastening it to his belt with altogether too much noise for his brother's liking.