“We will have the regiments gathering, then,” he observed with enthusiasm. “Lots of new mouths to feed. Perhaps even Christian troops from the provinces, all of whom eat fish on Fridays.”
“Christian troops mean a harbour full of drunkards,” said the tea seller with disdain. “Fights in the streets, sailors knocking down anything they think is ‘heretical.’ Looking at you with those cat eyes of theirs.” He smiled apologetically to the baker. “I mean no offence to you, effendi.”
Despite the caveats, everyone seemed cautiously pleased. Zayd had been too, at first. After a long period when this, the mightiest empire on earth, beloved by Allah, had sunk into soft indolence, it was rallying to hear the war drums, to think of the horsetail standards streaming out over barbarian lands.
But now that patriotism ebbed, he found he was left with worry. “They have a fine navy, the British, so I’ve heard. I’m only glad we do not live farther out towards the sea. I read that their guns can hit targets a mile away. How do you defend yourself from that?” War, no matter how it stirred the blood, had changed drastically since the days of Osman. War on the sea was their enemy’s strength.
“We have a fine navy too.” The baker took back the now empty basket of bread from the beggar’s hands, tucked it under his elbow on top of the empty platter of börek. “And the world trembles at the thunder of our horses’ hooves. I, for one, am glad that we are taking the faith to a lost nation. God is with us, what need do we have for anything else?”
“God is with us,” Zayd agreed, though Allah was just, and how just would it be to go to war because of a mistake? That, too, was a source of worry.
The impromptu picnic broke up, and he waved farewell to the beggar. Following the baker back to his shop, he bought a dozen bitter almond biscuits.
“The sort your mother likes.”
“Yes.”
“She’s well?”
Zayd smiled, though he wondered what she would make of the news. “As always. I know she would like a proper house, but she doesn’t complain.”
“Too busy finding you a wife, eh?” The baker wrapped the biscuits in a layer of paper, and then in a linen cloth.
It was a shame to stuff such a pretty parcel into his sash, but Zayd needed both hands for the bucket. He grimaced. “A house would go a long way to helping with that, too. There are not many fathers who would happily see their daughter moved into a mausoleum.”
“Pah, you are a holy man. You are a catch for some pious family. Or you will be, once you are old enough to look the part.”
“And too old to enjoy a wife.” Zayd fumbled for his coins, but the baker waved the payment off.
“Your sad tale has moved my heart,” he laughed. “Take the only piece of sweetness I can offer you with my blessings—surely you are in more need of it than I.”
After which there was nothing left except the steep climb through the higher levels of the city, where the paving gave way to the slopes of the cemetery of Eyüp. The mosque of Abū Ayyūb al-Anṣārī stood domed and familiar against a sky that had begun to glow with the deeper colours of early evening. This mosque was not so grand as the Suleymaniye, nor so perfect as the Aya Sophia, which gleamed and twinkled in the distance, farther out towards the harbour mouth, but holier than both, and modest with it.
Sketching a reverence towards the mosque, Zayd wound his way through the cypresses and small white walls that shaded the swell of the graveyard that surrounded it. He knew the headstones by heart—the flowing inscriptions, the knobs of carved turbans on top, denoting each dead man’s status in life. A particularly lovely mimosa tangled above the slightly larger stone tomb of one Ibn Nesim, who had been a poet in life. Zayd paused there to ease his aching arms and look down over the beauty of the greatest city in the world.
Evening’s humidity was beginning to draw scents from the flowering plants that grew in profusion among the graves, and the cicadas were picking up urgency again after being lulled to sleep in the midday sun. He left the poet behind and turned down a paved lane of grander tombs, some nothing more than a single room with the catafalque immediately within, some with one or two antechambers. Most of these had regular living inhabitants—Zayd’s neighbours and peers. The poor, as well as those who had retired to a simpler life to think about God, away from the city’s bustle.
Zayd’s father had left him something a little better. He reached the end of the quiet street of the dead, and there was the mausoleum of Dede Abdul Khaliq, his home. The saint, in life, had been a friend of the angel Gibril, had cured illnesses both by touch and by his word, and had set his neighbours’ problems before the angel, relaying the supernatural wisdom back. Once, he had been one of the hermits. By the time he died he had been so well-known, so beloved, that the people he had touched in life had built him this splendid complex: the great hall in which his catafalque lay, and five chambers beyond with windows of pierced stonework and coloured glass. Enough for an office for Zayd and separate small quarters, decently shuttered and retired from anyone who might come to seek his help, for his women.
With some relief, he pushed open the wrought-iron gate that closed the entrance to the tomb and set his jellyfish inside in the cool. He couldn’t quite tell if they were still alive or not—they moved, but then the water was swaying from his gait, and pond weed would have moved just the same.
“Peace be upon you, grandfather.” Zayd stooped to greet his silent housemate by touching a respectful hand to the stone slab under which he lay. The inscription on the stone had once been gilded, but other hands than Zayd’s had worn the gold away, taking it home on a million pious fingertips. What they had not taken was the feather. Set into the stone, deep under a massive slab of rock crystal that bent the light like water, a feather longer than Zayd’s forearm blushed an astonishing rosy pink. If that was one of Gibril’s wing feathers, the full spread must be lovely indeed. Zayd often imagined the wings as shading from crimson to gold, like a particularly spectacular sunset.
He was only a humble guardian of the tomb and the relic; he was neither particularly orthodox nor pious, and did not deserve that the angel who had once appeared to the saint should ever appear to him. But sometimes he wished. It was hard to be thought of as a holy man—that had started the moment he took over from his father—and to make a living providing magical aid to anyone who asked, without proof or conviction that any of it really existed.
Setting doubt aside again, he moved the bags that lined the walls to make a space for the bucket. Those who were too poor to have any roof at all over their head brought their few precious possessions to him when they needed to store them. He kept them safe in a place from which no man would steal on peril of his soul, and labelled them so that he knew which to give back to whom. Sometimes, when their owners had food to spare, or even coin, they paid him for the privilege. Other times they did not, and that was fine too. Like the baker, he was as generous as he could be with the resources he possessed.
Knocking first, he ducked in to the harem to deliver the biscuits to his mother and aunt, and then—determined to make good use of the last few hours of light—brought his writing equipment and an unfinished magic diagram out of his office cupboards into the broader flood of light through the main room’s door. This was a charm against malaria: a square of paper filled with numbers and sigils, with the names of angels and an invocation of divine mercy. When it was done it would be rolled up and placed inside a large cylindrical bead that could be worn around the neck, or hung up at the street door of a house to keep the illness away.
It was, therefore, small, delicate and intricate work. Between consulting three different books and his father’s notes to be sure he got it right, and struggling with his own involuntary muscle spasms to make the shapes as smooth and powerful as he could, he had no attention to spare for anything else.
He was only aware of his visitors when their shadows fell across the page and almost made him smudge the ink. Then he looked up, his feet cramping from t
he shift of weight, and registered the high white slopes of janissary headdresses, the soldiers beneath them equally knife-bladed, fierce-eyed, and ready to die. Two of them. Each stepped to one side and allowed a third man to come forward, though man was probably a misnomer. Gorgeously clad in silk the iridescent blue of peacock feathers, and perfumed with bergamot, the young person was of indeterminate gender, smooth-faced, decked in bracelets, and ears decorated with pearls, with a softness of fat about the face and figure that lent them a feminine sleekness.
Large, bright, beautiful eyes took in Zayd’s admiration and seemed to find it amusing. “Zayd Ibn Rahman? You are the custodian of this shrine, the student of magic?”
“I am.” Zayd scrambled up and wished he had kept back some of the biscuits to offer. He made a fruitless little gesture towards the stone jar of water that leaned against the farther wall. “May I offer you water? It is a long way up here, I know.”
“I think we’ll dispense with the pleasantries.” The eunuch’s smile was mischievous. He clearly enjoyed terrifying unimportant holy men with unexpected troops. “If you need to bring a coat, go get one now. We are to take you to the palace at once.”
Zayd should be honoured, but only had room for fear. What had he done that anyone in the palace might have taken note of? Had he overstepped some boundary? Did they . . . Mercy of heaven, had someone told them he had spoken to the officer on the British ship before it had opened fire? Was he to be blamed for that?
The eunuch put a hand over his mouth to muffle his laughter. “I should tell someone about that guilty conscience of yours,” he said, “but I won’t. I am Daoud, servant to the Grand Mufti. You can question me all you like about what this is about, for my answer will be the same: I have not been told myself.”
He cast an interested eye over Zayd’s accommodation, the bundles of other people’s clothes, the sad little table from which the ivory inlay had long disappeared. Inkpot of clay, cushion with the knap removed, through the rubbed surface of which the stuffing had begun to leak. “But I don’t think they would have sent me to arrest a dangerous criminal. I rather think I’m not supposed to represent a threat.”
Slightly reassured, Zayd yelled through the harem screen to tell his women he would be venturing out again, shed jacket and caftan just long enough to add a waistcoat to the ensemble, dabbed on the jasmine perfume that he preferred, and tightened his turban. While he did this, the soldiers merely glared at him the way ibises glare at teeming fish, as if conscious that they were a higher form of life than he. But Daoud inclined his head a little as if to say, It will do. “Follow me, then, please.”
Down to the harbour, unburdened this time except by worry, and into a private caïque rowed by sixteen burly men in matching clothes with hats whose colours Zayd could not quite tell in the tricky evening light. The janissary guards sat in the bow, Daoud on the seat in the stern, and Zayd crouched before him. It must be something to do with what I saw in the harbour, he thought, as they surged through silver-grey waves and pewter sky towards Topkapi. What other reason could there be?
The splendour of the palace, the courtyards filled with running water and trees and all the flowers of paradise, failed to calm him. His lips tingled as he forgot to breathe. He told himself that at least he was not being taken to the fortress of seven towers. It didn’t help much. That might come yet.
Once past the outer wall, they walked through pavilions and gilded gateways, past knots of men waiting for audiences with this official or that. The rooms were smaller at first, then larger. Standing queues of petitioners gave way to divans where groups of men sat in glorious clothes and debated in lowered tones. The walls, covered with texts from the Koran, exhorted him to honesty and charity, obedience and bravery. He straightened his back in response. Daoud, and the soldier-slaves who followed him, had given their lives already. The years they had to walk and talk were only on loan from their master. If asked to give them up, they would do so with a dignified smile. Surely Zayd could do the same. He was innocent of wrong, after all. Only paradise awaited him on the other side of the garrotte.
Instead of a prison, they brought him out to a pavilion that opened onto a modest garden brilliant with the blooms of tulips of every colour. There, a dozen people before him bowed and drew away, and left him awkwardly standing over Grand Mufti Haji Nabih bin Aaban, prevented from falling to prostrate himself by Daoud’s sudden, unexpectedly strong grip on his elbow.
Daoud had to physically drag him to a cushion and settle him there, while Haji Nabih watched with such a perfection of indifference he might have been asleep, but for his open eyes. Less well-dressed eunuchs brought tea, which Zayd clutched at, thankful for something to hold. And then, as if there had been a gesture too slight for Zayd to see it, all of them withdrew at once, ushering other petitioners out before them. Zayd was left completely alone in the mufti’s presence, and the knowledge that this truly was an unprecedented honour robbed him of his breath again.
Well-known by sight throughout the city, Haji Nabih combined an openhanded generosity with his fortune—endowing schools, libraries, bath houses, hospitals for all—with time and acts of kindness to the common man that had made him one of Istanbul’s most beloved officials. Though Zayd dwelled in a holy man’s house, it was not so awe-inspiring or terrifying as sitting down to talk with a man the city regarded as a living saint. Dede Abdul had made few demands of his tenants, but who knew what sacrifices the Grand Mufti might require?
Haji Nabih did not point out that Zayd resembled a frightened gazelle. He simply took a long, deep breath and, leaning forward, murmured, “You are the magician?”
“Theoretical magician, holy one,” Zayd insisted. “I study magic and draw up charts to do small things. I am not one who can speak with the djinn and the angels. I am just—just a scholar of these matters.”
“But you would know if someone were under the influence of the evil eye? There are tests for evil influence which you could perform?”
Zayd knew there were references to such practices in his father’s books. “I would have to have access to my research—” he debated briefly how foolish he wanted to look in front of the highest spiritual authority in the land against how much he honestly wanted to be of help “—and possibly my mother’s assistance.”
“Your mother?” the Grand Mufti sounded interested, rather than contemptuous.
“She has more actual power than I do. With my guidance she can do great things.”
“As Fatima herself did. You are wise not to discount any of those to whom Allah’s blessings are given.” Haji Nabih flicked his prayer beads one by one through his palm, nudging them along with his thumb, while he watched lanterns kindle in distant windows, filling the evening with golden stars. He sighed, and Zayd wondered with a little curl of dread whose health could possibly be important enough for the Grand Mufti to concern himself directly. “I have spoken to the imam of your lodge. The Bektashi dervish order is in good standing with me, and I have no doubt of its loyalty as a whole. Your own lodge mates vouch for your integrity, but you must understand . . .”
He took out a square of cloth and wiped his face and hands as if purifying himself for prayer. “I think I need to threaten you regardless. If you let one word slip of what I am about to show you, your death—and the deaths of your respected mother and her sister—will not be quick. To speak of this would be a matter of treason, approaching blasphemy.”
Zayd’s hands and feet went cold. His tongue seemed to swell in his suddenly dry mouth. “There must be someone other than me you can ask. Someone more important.”
“All the important people are already playing games,” said the Grand Mufti with a wintery smile. “Games which mean I cannot rely on them to give me an honest opinion. I am therefore relying on you. Do not let me down.”
“I . . . I won’t.” Zayd swallowed the last of his tea, which had gone as bitter as his stomach. “I will do everything I can possibly do.”
“And that is
all I ask. Come, then.”
He led Zayd in person, rising and disappearing into the walls like a mouse into a hole. Zayd gaped in surprise before, coming closer, he saw the concealed entrance of a narrow passage behind a pillar he had thought was mere ornament.
Squeezing into a claustrophobic corridor, scarcely wider than a coffin, he followed the Grand Mufti through the walls of the palace. They passed many grates and a few doors, going down two steep flights of steps, before pausing behind a pierced-work image of a wide-lipped vase full of chrysanthemums, through which an oil lamp’s golden glow guttered.
Secret passages. For the servants’ use, so they could tend to their masters unobtrusive and omnipresent? Or networks for spies of the great ones of the court, the mufti and the vizier? He didn’t dare ask.
Each room they had half glimpsed through the walls had been richer than the last. This was the most opulent of them all, with tables and book stands sheathed in precious gems, carpets as pure in colour as the stones scattered on the floor, tapestries and embroideries folded around precious objects or hung on the walls wherever there was a slight break from stained glass and gilded stone stars. A man sat in it alone, a stout gentleman with a carefully dressed moustache and beard, who muttered under his breath as he fiddled with a nargileh of solid gold with a jade mouthpiece. Zayd realised who he was seeing too late and tried to prostrate himself. The width of the passage was too slender to allow it; all he could manage was an awkward bow.
Haji Nabih raised an eyebrow at him as if to say, Well?
“I can’t tell just like that,” Zayd whispered. “I need to go home, prepare a charm, and consult the correct formulae in my books.”
“I will have a hundred angels!” the man screamed suddenly at the ceiling. “I will go forth accompanied by saints. I will have carpets and djinni. Where are my holy men? Where are my magicians? I will have them pour fire on my enemies, teach them with flame not to insult me.”
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