“Share what?” How much did he know?
“Invincibility, of course. You’re quite the bird dog, Ethan, pointing the way for your betters. Imagine finding the wooden idol that controlled ancient history. One of us is going to be very rich.” His tone was mocking.
So I charged.
It was a mistake. Von Bonin’s artificial arm swung up, I heard the click and snap of the mounted lock, there was a flash of powder, and suddenly a spout of fire stabbed from his prosthesis. The tube spewed flammable oil!
I jerked backward and fell on my back as flames shot over my face. The heat was terrifying. Then the dragon’s tongue puffed out as quickly as it had flared.
“An ingenious improvement, no? Come get warm, Ethan.”
I scrambled backward. “You madman. You’ll set Canopus on fire.”
“You fear my new appendage? Your aggression at Jelgava made the refit necessary. I pump oil and alcohol from a bladder, add spark from a flintlock strapped to my wrist, and cast flame like a sorcerer. Yes, that’s right, back into that corner there. Easier to roast you.”
“You’ll kill us all!”
He jerked his head to indicate a leather bucket. “There’s sand enough. I’ll put you out, once you’re cooked.” He aimed.
I hurled the marling-spike and Von Bonin flinched and ducked. The flintlock sparked, but his jerk spewed the oil sideways and it didn’t catch. I leaped sideways over a gaping hole leading to the bilge and caught a provision barrel that dangled from a counter-weighted block-and-tackle hoist. The cask swung in the dark, me riding it like a wild horse. Snarling, the Prussian yanked out a pistol with his other hand and tracked me.
“All pendulums come to a rest.”
I pumped to swing even more, and then chopped at the tackle rope with my cleaver. Von Bonin cursed and triggered another geyser of fire, but I swung through it. So he risked a shot.
The rope parted. The barrel fell away back into the hold, bursting like an egg. The counterweighted rope catapulted me upward.
The Prussian’s shot buzzed past my ankles. Now his gun was empty. I launched to the gundeck and landed on its planking. “Guards!” Where’s a marine when you need one? My enemy bounded after me, dashing up a companionway ladder.
I looked wildly about. How to hold him off? I seized a bucket hanging by a cannon and hurled it at the Prussian’s head. He dodged. I grabbed a ramrod with a woolen head for mopping out the muzzle and charged him like a knight wielding a lance.
Another gout of fire. I hopped back. “Help! Marines!” My ramrod had ignited and I weaved it like a torch, holding Von Bonin just far enough away that his puffs of heat pulsed without burning me. We fenced for advantage with fire. Cotton hammocks had been rolled and placed against the bulwarks to help contain splinters, and one of them flared up. Ropes and canvas began to burn. I had to put an end to this insanity; there could be gunpowder anywhere. “Fire!” I hollered.
I heard shouts on the deck above.
“Too late, Gage.”
Then I spied inspiration. I’d retreated to a grog butt used to give sailors a drink after the battle, and a rum keg sat nearby. I hurled the flaming ramrod at Von Boning like a javelin, whirled to seize a cannonball, smashed the keg’s top, and bowled the ball at my tormentor.
He dodged like a matador and came at me, eyes bright, lethal arm extended. My back was pressed against the water butt.
“See you in hell.”
The flintlock flashed, and flame seared like a bolt of lightning.
So I tossed the contents of the rum keg straight at his face and threw myself prone.
Alcohol exploded. The air of the gundeck became a fireball. Von Bonin screamed. Suddenly it was him, not me, on fire. His hair flamed. His clothes erupted. He howled with fury and pain. His diabolical invention had backfired.
The Prussian ran, trailing fire that ignited tarred rope and cotton hammocks. The deck was becoming a smoky inferno. Sailors were tumbling down from the deck above, yelling and cursing. I ran after the scoundrel, pursuing a scarecrow of fire.
Von Bonin launched himself through the gaping hole in the hull of Canopus and, as fiery meteor, plunged into the dark beyond. There was a big splash.
I lurched to a stop and looked down. Foam marked his entry but there was no sign of my antagonist.
A midshipman pointed at me. “It’s the American Jonah!”
“Saboteur!” Two marines raised rifles. “Arsonist!”
So I seized the cannonball I’d bowled and dived headfirst myself, crashing into the cold waters of the February sea.
As intended, the weight carried me thirty feet straight down. My eardrums squeezed. I released the ball and swam beneath the ship’s keel. Every eye would be on the port side where I dove, so I cautiously surfaced to starboard near the weedy hull, gasping for breath and looking anxiously about. No sailor spied me but I didn’t see Von Bonin, either. Had the burns killed him? I didn’t feel that lucky.
I dove to swim underwater away from the ship, seeking distance and concealing darkness. No shots came. After fifty yards I struck out in a crawl for the nearest island. There I’d steal a boat to take me to Constantinople.
Disaster! But the shock of fire and chill water had cleared my head. Cezar Dalca was still at large. Lothar Von Bonin may or may not be alive. Both could reach shore. I had to make Astiza safe, and I knew just how to do so.
I was already composing a message. She and Harry must hide in the sultan’s harem while I helped Sebastiani drive off the English.
Then I’d get Caleb and we’d destroy these monsters once and for all. It was time for the Gage brothers to put an end to our torment.
CHAPTER 33
Astiza
“We’re in peril, priestess.”
The worried sultana had curled up next to me on a sofa in her salon, she golden, me dusky, and yet of similar age and temperament. We both felt life had swept us along in adventures of great but unknown meaning. A fortuneteller in Martinique had told the child Aimée that one day she’d bear a king. I felt that I was always tantalizingly close to piercing life’s veil of mystery that always seems to recede like a rainbow, finding our ultimate meaning.
“I don’t feel imperiled here in your vast palace, surrounded by thousands of guards and soldiers,” I said. I’d been invited to visit again, leaving Harry in the temporary care of a governess at the French embassy.
“The English fleet has fought its way past the Dardanelles and is anchored at the Prince Islands,” Aimée replied. “We haven’t had word of your husband or his brother.”
“I’d sense if something fatal happened to Ethan. It would strike my heart like an arrow. Caleb is presumably with the Turkish fleet. Selim and Sebastiani are working to mount more cannon on the walls of Constantinople. Surely such a great city cannot fall.”
“Any city can fall from within.” Although we were alone, the sultana’s voice quieted. Did harem spies peer through hidden peepholes or listen through latticed windows? “For the English to get this far is a shock. The Janissaries may bang their cauldrons.”
“Isn’t it their duty to defend the city?”
“Their loyalty is only to themselves, and they hate and fear Selim. His New Army exposes their uselessness. He’s taken advice from France and the French kadin, me. All this threatens the Janissary lock on power. How long will the sultan invite them to receive their pay if newer soldiers win the victories? The Janissaries forced Selim to appoint Hilmi as Vizier and Gelib as Aga, and both are reactionaries. They suspect me of being the whore who pushes Selim toward France.”
“Some must appreciate you.”
“My influence is exaggerated. The sultan turned to the West because he knows the Ottomans must change, even while some claim that change threatens Islam. Selim wants to strengthen Islam. But his enemies use religion against him.”
“Yo
u think there will be a coup?”
“If we’re defeated by the English or the Russians and the sultan doesn’t take precautions, yes. I’ve tried to persuade him to move his regiments into the city to counter the Janissaries, but he fears civil war. Meanwhile trade has ceased and food prices are soaring because the enemy interrupts commerce. There’s been another outbreak of plague, and the muezzins are calling the faithful to the mosques. The palace buzzes with rumors. Ministers are making alliances with both sides. As a woman I can’t pretend to know all the plots being hatched. I only know we’re in danger.”
“You and the sultan.”
“Me, the sultan, my son Mahmud, and you. If the Janissaries rise they’ll put weak-willed Mustafa on the throne. Since I’ve always been close to Selim I bested Mustafa’s mother as the new sultana, but she remains determined to overthrow me. Who knows what ‘accidents’ might occur when Janissary soldiers rampage through Topkapi? I’m draped with jewels, yet as vulnerable as a mouse under the shadow of a hawk.”
“Can’t Selim take steps to protect you and Mahmud?”
“Not without betraying fear and seeming weak. The sultan is determined to pretend all is well, lest people panic and soldiers desert. He thinks he can save the city and, by doing so, save himself. We women must hope he succeeds, yet prepare for the worst. That’s why I’ve befriended you, Egyptian seer. I need magic.”
“Magic!”
“You must enable us to disappear if peril comes.”
“I’m a scholar, not a sorceress.”
“You’ve been in many mysterious places and have secret knowledge no mortal can match. No, don’t deny it, I see the wisdom in your eyes! You’ve been sent by Allah, Astiza, to help us in our hour of need. Somehow you must cast a spell of refuge, even while your husband tries to help with artillery.”
I was taken aback. She was so earnest! First the tsarina wanted prophecy, and now the sultana wanted invisibility. Such faith people put in me, for so little reason! But Harry trusts me too, and in any revolt we might be swept up in violence and chaos. Where would we hide? The harem has hundreds of rooms, but wouldn’t they all be searched? Every exit door was guarded against escape. Even if the black eunuchs let us flee, what were the chances of survival in a rioting Constantinople? Aimée in particular had a cascade of golden hair likely to betray her. Yet a spell? I knew no magic.
She was watching me expectantly. I pondered. The French embassy would be no guarantee of safety, either. There were only a handful of French soldiers to guard Sebastiani.
And then I remembered the story told by the Kizlar Aga. “At the entrance to the harem there’s a domed anteroom with two mysterious closets,” I said. “The chief eunuch pointed them out to me. Have you heard the legend?”
“That a naughty eunuch and naughty slave girl hid there and disappeared,” Aimée said.
“What if the stories are true, sultana?”
“They are magical closets?”
“Not magic. Secret portals to a secret place. That’s my suspicion.”
“But how? Why?”
“Who knows? This palace is hundreds of years old. Many castles and manor houses have secret doors and passageways. We escaped through one at Jelgava last year. Perhaps a sultan built the closets for just such an emergency. If I could confirm my hunch, it might be just the magic you’re looking for.”
Now her eyes were bright. “Yes! We had a secret door in my childhood home in Martinique. There was also rumor of a hidden corridor in the medieval convent where I was educated in France. Why not here in Topkapi?”
“The original secret has been long lost, but the closets remain. You must get me into one to investigate.”
“Ah. Difficult. The eunuchs would not allow it, or if they did the secret would soon be shared all across the palace.”
“Then I can’t help you.”
“Yet your request is not impossible for the bold.” The sultana thought a moment and then smiled. “Come. I’ll cause a distraction as you’re about to leave and you can slip inside. If you find yourself trapped, pound on the door and explain you were foolishly curious about the old legend. The Kizlar Aga will scold you, but also think you a silly woman and throw you out. If you do find a secret way, come back in another visit and tell me.”
“Secret passages are dark,” I said. “Lend me a tinderbox and small lantern to hide in my robes.”
“Of course. What fun to be conspirators!”
The charade worked. The sultana insisted in escorting me through the Court of the Black Eunuchs to the Place of Attendants beyond, and there bid me goodbye with kisses on both cheeks. I was ready to vanish when a eunuch startled me by pressing a sealed letter into my hands. “A message from the city,” he said.
The sultana shook her head in alarm.
“I’ll read it on the way home.” Any note could wait.
As I stepped through the door to the Carriage Gate anteroom, Aimée pretended to fall. “My ankle!” Such a stumble was a calamity on par with an earthquake, for failure to protect the sultana from her own clumsiness might mean execution. Guards sprang to help, a cry went up for a doctor and litter, and I used the tumult to slip inside a closet.
“No, please, I’m alright,” I could hear Aimée saying as I shut the door. “Just a tiny twist. Please, let me up. Where’s Astiza? Did she leave? Yes, yes, it’s sore. Can you carry me back to my quarters?”
The closet was full of guard cloaks and quite cramped. I used fire-steel to strike sparks on a sulfur match and lit my lamp. The rectangular box in a stone alcove seemed ordinary enough, with a wooden ceiling, door, and floor. I patted the surfaces, but they were far too solid for my meager magic. The door itself had no way to be opened from inside, so there was no escape without calling for help. I tugged on the coat pegs, but none was a lever. Maybe the story of the disappearances was just that, a story.
I dreaded having to call for rescue.
How had a slave girl discovered what I could not? I heard guard voices outside, complaining in Turkish and probably muttering about my impolite exit from their care. Then I heard the creak of the opposite closet door being opened and closed. The guards were not fools. They were checking.
I counted the tread of steps to my cubby, puffed out my lamp, and squirmed to the closet’s end, squeezing myself as small as possible behind the rank of cloaks. The door swung open, dim light fell, and I pressed like wallpaper. I even brought back my feet.
“Hicber sey.” Nothing. The door slammed shut, leaving me in darkness.
Even as it did there was a click where I’d rammed my heels.
The closet’s wooden floor began to roll away as if on wheels. I gasped as I dropped to a second floor, six inches below the first.
The instant my weight hit this platform, it began to gently descend into the earth. It was completely black. Overhead, I could hear a snap as the primary closet floor stopped its recession and returned to position, concealing the platform I was standing on. Then this second floor stopped with a jolt.
I listened cautiously. Silence. No light. I smelled damp stone. I touched cobwebs and cold air.
Somewhere, something skittered.
It was several minutes before I dared strike a light. Ropes suspended my small wooden platform from the closet above and a tunnel led beneath the palace. When I stepped off the platform it ascended and clicked into place, higher than I could reach.
So there was no going back. At least I saw no bones of missing eunuchs or slave girls; if those truants had escaped then maybe I could too. I began to follow the featureless tunnel, calculating that I was heading vaguely east, away from the harem and towards the Bosporus Strait.
When I saw dim light ahead I snuffed my own lamp out and crept forward. The illumination was coming from an overhead grate. My tunnel had widened into a small crypt, filled with several Roman stone sarcophagi, but it seemed as
forgotten as a sewer. I looked up. There was a much vaster room overhead, and a dome high above that. The meager light was coming from small glass skylights. I could make out weapons, robes, carpets, books, and metallic objects that glimmered and glowed.
My heart hammered. I was looking upward at the Topkapi treasury and what must be some of the most fabulous objects on earth. It was like the Peter and Paul vault. Life is circular, I tell Ethan.
There was no stair or ladder to the chamber above, and my own corridor ended at a blank wall. I was stalled in a crypt of the dead.
And yet why this passageway? The crypt was ancient and isolated, with no evidence of being visited. This was an old Roman passageway under newer Ottoman architecture, I guessed, its only air coming from that grate. And yet its dead-end had no logic, unless this wall was magic as well.
Once again I patted and explored. It took half an hour, me fearing discovery from the treasury above, but finally a wall stone pressed inward and a hidden door swung to reveal a darker chamber beyond.
This could have been an escape route for sultans. I stepped through, closed the hidden door behind me, and relit my lantern.
It was a repository of statuary and antiques cast off by the Byzantines and Turks. There were Roman shields and breastplates, ancient pottery, lead dinnerware, a chariot without wheels, and a litter without slaves to carry it. I counted a dozen statues of long-dead emperors. Here was the detritus of civilization too foreign to care about but too venerable to destroy. Bronze horses. More stone sarcophagi. Busts of great men no one remembered anymore. I fingered papyrus scrolls, Egyptian mummy cases, and bug-eyed pagan idols, all heavy with dust. The swords were greened bronze and pitted iron. The spear shafts had shriveled with time. Had the Muslim conquerors of Constantinople thrown down here images that Islam banned? Were these the lost treasure of Constantine the Great, who founded the city? Maybe relics of …
Troy.
I lifted my lamp.
Athena stood sentry in a chamber corner, half-hidden behind a statue that I guessed was Poseidon. The wood sculpture was an unremarkable five feet high, its torso almost black from age—and yet, in some miracle of preservation, still in existence after three thousand years. Her features had eroded, the carved eyes almost flat, the nose just a snub, but she clearly stood proudly in gown and armor, one arm holding a shield. Was this modest statue the protectress of Troy, Athens, Sparta, Rome, and Constantinople: the Trojan palladium, the Trojan icon? Her spear had broken off to a blunt stub that jutted above her head. Her head wore a helmet. Were her powers lost? After all, the Byzantines had finally fallen to the Turks. Or perhaps the foolish Byzantines had put her aside, forgetting her history, and buried her down here with antiquity’s debris. Perhaps the Turks had found her under Constantine’s earthquake-toppled column, and, not knowing what she was, had stuck her away in the dark.
The Trojan Icon (Ethan Gage Adventures Book 8) Page 28