Pasha's Tale

by Turney, S. J. A.

  And that meant there was no way out for him to the north or east, down to the Golden horn or into Phanar. Which suggested that if he intended to escape this strange ruinous region that had once been the world’s greatest palace, he would have to head south, back past Skiouros – a dangerous option, clearly – or to the city walls, which would grant him an easy route to freedom.

  Skiouros ran on, ducking round another corner and entering a ruined room, where half a dozen fractured columns jutted up like green and grey fangs from the undergrowth, jabbing accusingly at a sky which was even now turning a shade of indigo and showing the first sign of golden ribbons lacing through it. He would have to corner the man soon. Once it got dark, his chances of success would be negligible.

  Desperately, Skiouros charged to the three other doorways from the room. They had passed from the enclosed ruins now to the shattered structures left to moulder among greenery, and the grass hid any potential footprints. Squinting in the extremely dim light, he examined the grass. The doorway heading east into the city seemed to him to show signs of passage – the tips of the grass bent over – though whether by Dimo or by some animal denizen of the area, he could not tell. Still, it was the only evidence to go on.

  Damn you, Diego. This is your fault. If you hadn’t delayed us a good minute I’d have been right on his heels.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. In a quarter of an hour the sky would be glowing pinky-orange and all the city streets would be in murky darkness. He was almost out of time. What could Dimo be thinking of, going east? The whole area would be under the watchful eyes of Mustafa’s men. Since the attack on the house, the Romani leader had become extremely vigilant. Dimo was clearly clever, so he couldn’t be stupid enough to risk running into his former comrades.

  Skiouros’ eyes were drawn to the west as his mind replayed his earlier logic. Not north or east into Mustafa’s territory. And despite the fact that he had initially thought of the south as a possibility, if Dimo went that way, he would very likely end up back at the Tekfur Sarayi, which would go badly for him.

  No. This was a feint. Just like a swordsman. As the blade flicked out left, watch for the knife from the right…

  Dimo had gone east to lead Skiouros into believing that was his goal. And while Skiouros was busy poring over the dark dusty ground there looking for prints, the man would have doubled back to the west and through the walls to safety.

  With a racing heart, Skiouros realised that he’d just found a way – if there was no flaw in his logic – to catch up with his prey. The only realistic passage through the walls without straying near dangerous territory was the Kaligaria Gate off to the west. Dimo had skirted out east and would double back to the only place where he could cross the walls without going through Mustafa’s territory or near the Tekfur.

  Praying that he had not just deliberately abandoned the trail, and with it all hope, Skiouros ignored the signs of passage in the broken room and left through the western doorway, making directly for the Kaligaria. Moments later, he was stumbling from the shattered ruins that had formed part of the vast complex connecting Tekfur to the Imperial quarters in the Blachernae and into more open ground, with scattered orchards and gardens tended by the nearby Romani residents. Ahead, between trees and occasional ruined fangs of stone, he could see the Kaligaria gate and he jogged right and left, legs pounding on the hard compacted turf, seeking out the most major easy thoroughfare to the gate. Here and there the ramshackle wooden humps of Romani houses rose from the greenery.

  The light was almost gone now and the sky had become a deep purple, decorated with golden mackerel scales, and Skiouros bit his lip as he ran, desperately clinging to the hope that he’d been right and that Dimo was not busy right now disappearing into the alleys of Phanar.

  His prayers were answered and his hopes dashed in the same instant.

  Rounding the corner of a wall that reached head height and was topped by thorny bushes, Skiouros found himself on a wide, well-used path, the grass pounded down by many feet and cut through with countless wheel ruts. Ahead, the Kaligaria gate stood like some dreadful ultimatum.

  And halfway along the road between Skiouros and the gate, the figure of Yayan Dimo raced. He was far enough ahead that there was no doubt he would pass through that brooding archway beneath the huge heavy tower long before Skiouros. And while the Greek was well aware that he was physically fit and fast, clearly Dimo was easily his match in that, if not faster. The man was sprinting at a breath-taking pace considering how long he had already been running. Once he got through that gate he could go anywhere. He would be free.

  Skiouros blinked and promised to kiss the next church altar he passed as the maghrib prayer call began to roll out across the city and, in response to the sunset call, the Kaligaria gate swiftly swung shut, a small detachment of janissaries sealing the city walls for the hours of darkness.

  Thank you, God. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  The figure of Yayan Dimo, suddenly thwarted at the last moment by a matter of mere minutes, stumbled to a halt, dithering. Skiouros could imagine him weighing up the likelihood that the guards would open the gate for him and let him out. They wouldn’t. Even Skiouros knew that, and clearly Dimo quickly came to the same conclusion as the uncertainty about his manner disappeared and he made for the nearest structure – a large three storey ruin that had once been some adjuvant part of the palace system, or perhaps a lone basilica.

  Skiouros burst into a feral smile. He and friends had searched that very building one morning when they were checking for Romani watchers hidden in the area surrounding Mustafa’s house. Only two storeys of the building were realistically visitable. The bottom floor was largely occupied by shoemakers, whose presence over the centuries had given the gate its name – Kaligaria being Greek for that very profession. The small workshops were separated from the whole by makeshift dividing walls within the large open spaces of the structure, pierced from the road by a passage with a stairwell. The middle floor was only partially occupied by the owners of some of the workshops below, other larger parts of it unstable and crumbling. The top floor was mostly unroofed, just beams and fragments covering the whole edifice, and every step a gamble. He watched with satisfaction as the Romani disappeared into the pitch black of the narrow entry corridor.

  Dimo was trapped!

  Skiouros slowed as he closed on the building. There was no other exit on the ground floor. Unless he was willing to jump from a higher floor, which would be risky to say the least, Dimo was going nowhere.

  Narrowing his eyes and preparing himself, Skiouros drew his sword and relaxed his breathing after the strain of such a run. Better to face Dimo calm and rested, after all. Skiouros was no slacker and no stranger to the sword, but Dimo had cut his teeth on Mamluk blades in brutal warfare and could all too easily be underestimated. As he closed on the dark maw of the passage that led into the structure’s heart, the young Greek paused and cocked his head, holding his breath. Sure enough, the echo of pounding feet issued from within. The tone confirmed that Dimo was busy ascending to an upper floor. Good. Searching the interior in the pitch darkness was not an appetising thought – all dingy, damp chambers with no windows, used as storerooms by the shoemakers, and often as residences by the homeless.

  Skiouros hefted the curved blade. Somehow, over the years of fighting across Africa and Italy, he had become so cosmopolitan in his martial skills that it seemed as natural to be gripping a Turkish blade as it did to brandish a Spanish or Italian sword. For that matter, he had to think hard to remember that he was dressed in the easy, comfortable garb of a wealthy Turk rather than his old poor Greek gear, so natural did it feel.

  Once again he wondered at the work that five years had wrought upon him.

  Let’s just hope there’ll be a sixth, he muttered under his breath and pushed ahead into the mouldy-smelling darkness of the ancient pile. The corridor was utterly encased in darkness, the floor and walls only visible for a few paces from the entra
nce. Skiouros might as well have been looking into the very entrance of Hell itself, and he found himself shuddering and faltering. Chiding himself for such nerves, he forged on into the black, slowly, trying to give his eyes time to adjust but with the light outside now almost gone, there was really nothing to adjust to. It was black, and that was all there was to it. Trying to recall what he could of the building’s layout, Skiouros stepped on carefully, making sure to explore with his toes so as not to crack his nose on a wall in the darkness.

  The sound of pattering footsteps upstairs confirmed that the stairwell was exactly where he’d thought, and he began to climb very slowly and carefully, listening all the time. Apart from the occasional drumming of feet above, the only sounds were the last strains of the sunset prayer call and a rather enthusiastic owl somewhere close by, ‘toowhit’-ing like mad, seeking its mate.

  The possibility suddenly struck him that the footsteps he was hearing above could easily be a vagrant or one of the shoemakers’ families. He quickly cast aside that possibility, though, hoping he was right. Vagrants would hardly be pattering around with such a sense of urgency, and there was little chance of the shoemaking families being anything other than Muslims, which would mean they would now be at prayer, not skittering around the upper floors of dilapidated Byzantine ruins.

  The footsteps had stopped. Perhaps Dimo had reached the top, or more likely found a hiding place.

  Taking a nervous breath, Skiouros rounded a corner and felt for the next flight of steps, gradually ascending them until he discerned the faintest glow of light from part of the middle floor where the ceiling or wall was missing. Grateful for anything but continued darkness, Skiouros hurried up the last steps of the flight and into the middle floor.

  The knife came out of nowhere, flung from some deep dark corner with the accuracy of a professional killer, and Skiouros found himself skittering back down the steps, trying not to tumble haphazardly, hissing at the pain in his leg, which was instantly far worse than the nagging soreness of his shoulder. A moment later he smashed painfully against the wall of the narrow landing where the staircase doubled back on itself, continuing on down.

  The wind knocked from him, Skiouros was just grateful that his enemy had not taken the opportunity to follow up. As he staggered and tried to account for all damage, he could hear footsteps climbing to the next level. That was a miscalculation on the part of Dimo. It seemed he thought Skiouros tougher than he actually was. Had the man followed him down the stairs, the Greek would hardly have had the time, the strength, and the wherewithal to put up much of a fight.

  He was wounded again – that much was clear from the excruciating pain in his thigh. The darkness had likely saved Skiouros’ life, though, for he felt sure that the thrown blade was intended for somewhere much more lethal. As it happened, it seemed the knife had stuck into his thigh muscle, and a brief agonising investigation suggested that only flesh and muscle was torn – nothing that wouldn’t recover eventually.

  The tumble down the stairs could have been at least equally damaging, but for the miraculous fact that Skiouros had managed somehow to keep his footing as he fell. Apart from being winded and a few scrapes and bruises, there was only the leg.

  Only the leg! Where had he picked up that attitude? He had his pick of friends to blame for that…

  Tentatively, he put his weight on it, gasped, whimpered, and staggered back against the wall rather than collapse to the floor like a heap of blubber. Damn it. One thing was certain: he wouldn’t be running, jumping or climbing, but until he removed the knife wedged in his leg, he wouldn’t be walking, either. In fact all he’d be doing was bleeding. The handle of the knife was short and plain, and he estimated the blade at three inches, most of which was in his leg. Lucky, really. He remembered Orsini once trying to explain to him the system of blood, and one thing that had stuck was that a major, critical, blood vessel ran down the inside of the thigh, perilously close to the crotch. The dagger was not far from there!

  Clamping his teeth together, he rested his sword in the corner and reached down, gripping the knife handle. Three deep breaths, two gentle nudges and one powerful prayer to Saint Nikolas, and he grasped the hilt and ripped it from his leg, along with a veritable fountain of crimson. Everything went blinding white and Skiouros was baffled for a fraction of a second by what could be the sound of a fallen angel having its wings torn away, before he realised the noise was coming from his own throat. Searing pain flooded in to fill the space left by the departing blood, and Skiouros felt the overpowering urge to collapse in a faint – or possibly vomit. Or both?. His eye twitching with the effort, he pulled himself up and tried to think straight. Stop the blood…

  Swiftly, unwilling to lose what little advantage he had at this late stage, Skiouros reached up and removed his turban, hastily unwinding several yards of white linen from the central core. Quickly and with clenched teeth, he wound the wrapping around the leaking wound, pulling it so tight that his muscle cramped, and then bound it round again and again and again, as taut as he could manage. Half a minute later, as he tied off his makeshift bandage and noted the pink stain already beginning to blossom upon it, he tested his weight.

  The first step was excruciating, but his leg held and he stayed upright. Determination overriding his agony, he collected his sword and picked up the knife, experiencing a whole new dimension of pain as he crouched, and then spent another half minute recovering. Then, slowly, but with a face that was a stony mask of resolve, he began to hobble up the stairs, leaning on the wall with his knife hand. This time, just in case, he ducked out of the stairwell and back twice, trying to avoid a repeat of the last attempt.

  No knife came from the darkness.

  Carefully, Skiouros turned and moved into the next stairwell, heading up to the top floor. A repeat of his duck-out-and-duck-back manoeuvre failed to produce another thrown knife, and the Greek emerged onto the upper floor tired and in pain, with a leg that seemed to be rapidly numbing. Could that be a bad thing? It felt better.

  The near end of this level was badly floor-boarded and with many parts missing. Indeed, even the walls gave way to large areas of hole that presented views of the inky sky and fiery sunset outside, as well as the scrubland and Romani shanty homes surrounding the place below. There were precious few places a man could hide up here, as was instantly evident. Skiouros paused and concentrated, his eyes scouring the crumbled structure, his ears pricked for any giveaway movement.

  The interior walls were more or less gone, just a few crumbling pillars and low tumbled piles of bricks. Only two or three could hide a human, and the floors in that area would almost certainly bow and give under the weight of a human. The few areas of outer wall did not give onto balconies or external stairs, just open air. He almost smiled as he caught sight of the heavy ancient corbels at the wall-top which once supported a decorative roofline, and his mind supplied him with an image of himself clambering through something similar at the castle of Roccabruna a couple of years ago to gain entrance to a parapet. That had been a life-and-death struggle, too. Of course, he’d been healthy then, not wounded in both shoulder and thigh.

  As he looked at the eaves of the roof, his peripheral vision spotted movement, and he turned.

  Surely not?

  The figure of Yayan Dimo moved across the shattered fragments of the roof above him with catlike grace. Skiouros glanced at the corner and noticed the ladder that led up to the roof. Not an original access point – the roof would not have been reachable. Recently placed, then, and in good working order – no problem for a dextrous former thief. But for a paşa with a knife-hole in his leg…

  At least Dimo was at the other end of the roof, perhaps looking for some way down, and Skiouros gritted his teeth and sheathed his sword, reaching for the ladder.

  *

  Yayan Dimo peered over the edge. Three storeys down to hard turf. High, old Byzantine storeys, too, not the modern low ceilings of the timber houses one saw all across the city. A fal
l that guaranteed broken legs if not certain death. He cursed. He had really hoped for some way out, or at least for somewhere safe from the demon that was following him. Who was this fake paşa? He had the build of a boy – albeit a wiry one – the face of an angel, and the eyes of an innocent, yet the tenacity of a wolf and the courage of a bear! When Dragi had first introduced him, Dimo had felt relieved that the enemy were pinning their hopes on such a poor specimen, and yet Skiouros the thief had managed to thwart them all this time, with the help of his friends. But even now, alone and wounded, facing a much tougher opponent – Dimo knew his own skills and strength – the young Greek still never gave up. Now, wounds in both shoulder and leg that would prohibit such an act for most hardened warriors, he was still managing somehow to climb the ladder. Oh he was making hard work of it, but he was still coming when most veterans Dimo knew would have long since stopped.

  And the Greek was armed. Dimo had nothing now. No sword. No knives. If it came down to a fight, despite his far superior skill, Dimo would almost certainly lose to the man with the sword. He clucked and fretted, chewing his lip. He was the last of the Alevi faithful involved in the attempt, but there was plenty of new blood to draw from in the Sulukule Romani community. He had to escape and bring his people out of danger, settle them somewhere safe, away from the city, and then begin to hatch a new plan.

  There was no way out, and he was outclassed. But he still had one thing – the only thing, in fact… he still had surprise. Bending, he reached down to the heavy roof beam upon which he trod with the sure-footedness of a mountain goat. His fingers closed on a broken tile half a foot across in each major dimension and an inch thick. His gaze fixed upon the ladder top and his eyes narrowed as he weighed up the situation, edging four paces closer to achieve a position on a cross of beams where his balance was that little bit more stable.