Tears of Pearl (9 page)

“Justice sometimes requires trouble,” I said. “But it’s important to uncover the truth.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a glittering object. “I found this that night after the opera in the courtyard where Ceyden was killed.”

“It’s beautiful.” I fingered the object he’d handed me, a golden Byzantine cross, three inches long, hanging from a broken gold chain.

“It belongs to Benjamin St. Clare. I was with him the day he bought it.”

“Why didn’t you give this to the guards?” I asked.

“I—I suppose I should have, but I was scared.”

“It’s surely not the only cross of its kind in Constantinople, and even if it does belong to Benjamin, it’s entirely possible he lost it weeks before the murder. He could have been invited to the opera on a different night and dropped it then. After all, it’s not as if we’ve a witness who saw him at the palace.”

“Quite right. No witness. Still, take it with you and ask your husband his opinion—I don’t like having it in my possession. There’s something else as well. I had gone to visit him at the dig the day before Ceyden’s death—I’ve always been fond of the boy. Reminds me of my own son, I suppose. It was an unplanned trip, he didn’t know I was coming, and it turned out he was not there. His compatriots said he had business in Constantinople and was visiting his father. Which, of course, he was not.”

“He told us he came to Constantinople as soon as he’d heard the news. My husband sent a message to him at the dig.”

“And the messenger reported back to the embassy that he was unable to deliver his epistle in person, as the man to whom it was addressed was not in camp.”

“Does Sir Richard know this?” I asked.

“No. It is fortunate that I was the one who spoke to the messenger, and I’ve kept all of this to myself. I saw no reason to alarm him in case I’m misinterpreting what I’ve seen. He’s shouldering so much at present—I’ve no desire to increase his burden.”

“Of course not. But if—”

“He’s always said he would support me, offered me every kindness. I will do anything I can to protect him. This is why I was concerned when I learned there would be a wider investigation. I do hope that if you find—”

He stopped speaking when light spilled into the room as the door opened. “Ah! Emily! You don’t look sick in the least!” Bezime glided into the room and took my hands in hers. “It is quite another thing, I think.”

“Seasickness,” I said. “It breaks my heart that the Bosphorus doesn’t agree with me.”

“Yes, I imagine it would.” She turned to my companion. “I did not expect to see you again so soon, Mr. Sutcliffe.”

He’d leapt to his feet the moment she entered and now bowed to her. “It is a pleasure, m’lady.”

“Of course it is. Why have you returned to me?”

“I saw Lady Emily ill on the dock and brought her—”

“I see. Thank you for your kind services. They are much, much appreciated.”

Mr. Sutcliffe turned red at her abrupt dismissal but otherwise maintained his composure. “I shall leave you to your conversation.”

“I do appreciate it,” she said.

“And I am indebted to you for your assistance, Mr. Sutcliffe,” I said. Another bow, and he exited the pavilion.

“He is a kind man,” Bezime said. “But troubled. He lost his family to disease years ago and is still plagued by nightmares. I worry for him. He does not sleep well.”

“It’s very sad,” I said. “He told me he’d lost a child, but I was unaware of the details.”

“Two children, during some dreadful epidemic. His wife, too, all a very long time ago. This sort of wound, though, does not heal well. I still mourn my own son.”

“The sultan, Abdül Aziz?”

“Yes,” she said. “I will never forget when they took the throne from him. The minister of war came to the palace to drag him away. I fought that dreadful man off—scratched his face, pushed him to the ground—but there was no stopping him. He took my son and imprisoned him.”

“I had no idea your son was deposed.”

“Yes. And he died not long after. Cut his wrists with a scissors I’d given him to trim his beard.”

“I don’t even know what to say. I’m so terribly sorry.”

“It was my fault. I killed him.”

“No, no. Of course not. You couldn’t have—”

She stopped me and placed a cold hand on mine. “Enough of this. I tell you only so you know I am familiar with the pain shared by both Mr. Sutcliffe and Ceyden’s father. There is no grief worse than that from losing a child.”

“I can only imagine,” I said.

“Yes, for now. You, Emily, blame your troubles on the Bosphorus?”

“Seasickness is—”

“You are not seasick. You are with child.”

“I . . . well . . . it may be, but I—”

“I am already certain. Your own confirmation will come soon enough. But it is most disturbing to me. Nothing good will come from this situation.”

“Why would you say such a thing?”

“I have read your charts, chanted for you, done all that I can to see your future. You are not on the right path.”

I hardly knew how to react. I was stunned that she would say such a thing, horrified she would address so delicate a subject with someone she knew only slightly, and I was more than a little scared, for she seemed to know definitively the answer to a question I’d been afraid even to pose. “I don’t think you should—”

“No, of course you do not. You are unused to people speaking directly about this topic, and the terror in your eyes would be readable even to a fool. Does your husband know of your condition?”

“I don’t know that I even have a condition,” I said. “There have been some signs, but—”

“There can be no doubt. I have much experience in these matters.”

“I’d prefer not to discuss it. I’m here to talk about Ceyden.”

“I have no interest in that subject today.”

“Then it seems I have wasted a trip.” I rose from the sofa.

“You will go from me now, but when you want to come back, it will be too late,” she said. “Think carefully, Emily, before you cross through those doors. I have looked into the future.”

“I don’t believe in any of this. You can’t possibly know—”

“I know what the future holds at this moment. The choices you make from now on may change your course, but you must walk with trepidation and make no mistakes if you’re to have any chance at escaping your current fate.”

I stood up, stormed across the room, but could not quite bring myself to leave. I turned back towards her. “Why would you tell me something like this?”

“I like you, Emily. You deserve the warning.”

9

Rather than wait for my husband on the steps of the Archaeological Museum, as we’d planned, I paced the perimeter of the first courtyard at Topkap?, looking for him on the path that led to the museum. Bezime’s words had sickened me. My temples throbbed, my stomach would not stop twisting around itself, and my mind was full of fear. I saw Colin as he walked through the gate, arms crossed, tension in every calculated step he took. He called out when he caught sight of me and waved, but as I reached out for his hand when he stood before me, his eyes flashed a combination of concern and anger.

“Did you omit anything when you told me what happened at Y?ld?z yesterday?”

“No, of course not,” I said. “You’re awfully accusatory.”

“I can’t say I much liked receiving a visit from the British consul telling me that you and I have been banned from there.”

“From Y?ld?z?”

“Yes.”

“Heavens,” I said, rolling my eyes and starting for the museum’s steps. The neoclassical building had opened not more than a year earlier, and although it was not so large as the British Museum, I’d looked forward to viewing the collection from the moment I’d read about it on the train. “If I’ve given that much insult, I’d certainly like to have known at the time I was doing it. I might have rather enjoyed it.”

“This isn’t amusing, Emily. Did you promise to help someone escape from the harem?”

“I—how—” I closed my eyes, sighed hard. “I didn’t say I would help her escape.”

“But you spoke to the sultan about it?”

“I asked him in general terms if he would consider arranging a marriage for her.”

“And this is why you were removed with such force? Why you had bruises on your arms?”

“Yes,” I said.

“And you con ve niently neglected telling me that particular detail,” he said. “How could you think broaching such a topic to the sultan would be appropriate?”

“She’s living like a slave.”

“And a loveless marriage would be an improvement?”

“I don’t know. She’s converted to Christianity, Colin, and is living in a state of mortal sin. She’s embraced the work of St. Thomas Aquinas.”

“Aquinas? The same who said, ‘Drink to the point of hilarity’?”

“It’s not a joke. She’s very serious about her faith and is tortured at not being able to walk away from sin.”

“I cannot believe this.” He turned away from me, walked towards the museum entrance, put his hand on the door, then turned back. “This is not some diversion. We’ve been granted access—unprecedented access, I might add—to the sultan and his harem because both the British and Ottoman governments want to avoid an embarrassing diplomatic situation. You don’t have the right to take advantage of that to forward your own interests.”

“How can you speak to me like this?” I asked. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“You are acting as an authorized representative of the British Crown and are to operate in a very specific and limited manner.”

“I had no idea the Crown was so little interested in—”

“In what, Emily? In the romantic concerns of persons not British?”

“It’s not romantic, it’s theological!” My mouth hung open, and I could not breathe. “I never thought you of all people would recriminate me for—”

“For stepping completely out of bounds? I consider you my equal, and I will always tell you when you’ve gone too far.”

“Gone too far?” I could not keep my voice from trembling.

“Come inside,” he said.

He bought our tickets and ushered me into the museum. We did not speak again until we’d reached the Alexander Sarcophagus, the stunning and enormous object that had inspired the building’s architecture. It had not belonged to the great king, but its white stone showcased his strengths. On one side, he sat, wearing a lion’s head for a helmet, astride his horse, Bucephalas, fighting the Persian army, his enemy near defeat. The opposite panel showed him hunting lions. I leaned close, irritated at finding myself so distracted when before such a significant piece, but wholly unable to concentrate.

“Don’t be outraged,” Colin said. “I would have said the same thing to a man.”

“And I hope that he would . . . would . . .” I was losing my temper, and fast, despite the fact that I knew he was not being wholly unreasonable. I should have discussed Roxelana’s situation with him before I broached the topic with the sultan. I wondered if she had taken it upon herself to speak to Abdül Hamit. I looked at my perfectly handsome husband and felt nothing but anger. My tenuous grip on control was slipping fast; it was taking all my focus to keep from stomping my foot in petulant indignation and storming across the gallery. This, coupled with unwanted tears filling my eyes, was too much to be borne. It was as if I were no longer myself.

“You hope he would call me out.” He smiled. “Pistols at dawn? Or do you prefer swords?”

“I’d never be so dramatic,” I said, pretending to be fascinated with the detail on the face of a lion, Alexander’s prey.

“I imagine not.” He pressed his lips together, pushing them to one side, what he always did when he was trying not to laugh. Much though I hated to admit it at the moment, it was an irresistible maneuver.

“If I must, though, I’d pick swords,” I said. “More elegant.”

“Is that so? Rather messy in the end, don’t you think?” He walked back to me.

“You’ve been very firm about denying me my Derringer until I learn to shoot, so I assumed it would not be a wise move at this juncture to choose pistols.”

Now he did laugh. “I apologize if my frank manner of speech was too much. I should have couched my criticism in softer terms.”

This was not at all what I wanted. “No, no, you shouldn’t have. I don’t want to be coddled. I’m sorry if my actions have made things more difficult.”

He touched my face, his rough hand cool on my cheek. “I shan’t coddle you. Not now, at any rate. But there may come a day—a happy day—on which you require an extended period of coddling. Beyond that, however, I shall be as hard on you as I am on anyone.”

I did not like this talk of extended coddling, particularly as I had a strong suspicion he was referring to the probable cause of my would-be seasickness. Every dreaded emotion swirled through me, but I forced them away. “I want that treatment—that respect from you always. Regardless of whatever happy day we may reach.”

“Some circumstances—”

“Please.” I had to interrupt. “Not now. Let’s discuss the matter at hand.”

“Of course.” He paused, just for an instant, flashing my favorite smile. “We’re in a tricky situation. Tell me about your afternoon.”

“There’s so much, I hardly know where to start.” I took Benjamin’s cross out of my reticule and recounted Mr. Sutcliffe’s story.

Colin frowned. “It shall be easy enough to confirm whether it does belong to him. We are, however, going to need to get back into the harem. Do you think you can work your charms on the sultan and regain your access?”

“I shall have to find a way. We got along famously at first. I may have overstepped my bounds speaking to him about Roxelana, but that doesn’t seem enough—particularly as it’s not connected to the murder—to cause our expulsion. Something else had to be a contributing factor, and I’m convinced it has to do with Ceyden’s collection of ill-gotten jewels.”

“I’ve no doubt you can ferret out the truth. I’ll see where this leads us.” He took the chain from me and stopped in front of a small, glass-fronted case.

“Is this all that remains of Troy?” I frowned at the uninspiring grouping of broken pottery. “There must be more—all that gold. I’ve read about it.”

“Schliemann took it all to Berlin.” Heinrich Schliemann, the German archaeologist who’d found and excavated the site, had published pictures of his wife draped in the gold he called the Treasure of Priam. “Smuggled it.”

“We must go to the site of the excavation before we leave Turkey,” I said. “I will not sleep well again until I’ve seen the ground upon which Hector’s blood spilled.”

He pressed my hand to his lips. “You’re so dramatic.”

I smiled, but my thoughts had already returned to our purpose. “Do you think there’s a chance Benjamin killed his sister?”

“There’s always a chance, Emily.”

“I don’t even want to imagine what that would do to Sir Richard.”

“Or to Benjamin,” he said. “If he did it, did he know who she was?”

“Could he have killed her to save her from the shame of being in the harem?”

Colin laughed. “You and your fiction. When we’re old and gray and full of sleep, I’d like nothing more than to see you turn your talents to writing the worst sort of sensational novels.”

“ ‘Old and gray and full of sleep.’ What a lovely phrase. Poem?”

“Yeats. It’s to be in his next collection. He showed it to me last time I was in Dublin.”

“Well, I’ve no intention of ever being full of sleep. Old and gray, however, is unavoidable.”

Colin had gone in search of Sir Richard, leaving me to wait for his return at a tiny tea shop, where over perfectly crispy baklava I repeated again and again in my mind what Bezime had told me. Her words had sliced through me, ripping bright holes in the shaded hollows of my soul from which I’d been hiding since my marriage. The prospect of having a child terrified me. I’d never been able to shake from my memory the sound of screams echoing through the halls of my parents’ estate when I was eleven years old. The noise had wakened me, and I’d slipped out of the nursery, my bare feet cold on the marble floor as I sought the source of the disturbance, more than a little confident I had at last found a ghost, something my cousin James had tried and failed to do every time his family visited us. But as the cries grew louder, I recognized the voice. It was James’s mother, my aunt Clarabelle. We’d been told there would be a new baby in time for Christmas; instead there was a funeral.

Death was something to which we were all accustomed. My older brothers, twins, had both fallen to the influenza when they were thirteen years old, and James had lost a sister to rheumatic fever. Until that December, however, I’d viewed death as something that, while sad, was peaceful. Those ragged cries changed my opinion forever. My mother, tears streaming from eyes I’d never before seen cry, found me in the hallway, shivering on the floor. She marched me back to my room, told me not to be confused by what I’d heard, that this was commonplace, that it couldn’t always be avoided, that childbirth was a dangerous thing.

I don’t know that I’ve better remembered any of her words. And in the years that followed, I saw their truth borne out, most recently when an acquaintance from my school years died fewer than two years after her marriage, leaving behind a grieving husband and a sickly infant.

I disliked weakness, and my fear of so natural a process could be described as nothing else. This revelation disturbed me. The procreation of children, after all, was intended to be a primary purpose of marriage, and for every woman who died in the process, hundreds succeeded. Could it be a thousand? Or more? I wondered if knowing the true odds would offer me consolation. I placed my palm flat on my abdomen and wondered if Bezime’s words had contained any bits of truth. When we returned to England at the end of the following month, I would see my physician. If he confirmed what I suspected, I would share the news with Colin and let him coddle me, if only for the period of my confinement.

An intense sensation of heat rushed through me, followed by a wave of dizziness and a wash of fear, each of which dissipated as the call to prayer started, drowning out all my thoughts. I closed my eyes, let the sound vibrate through me, and found my head much more clear when it stopped. Relieved, I turned my attention to Ceyden’s book of poems. A quick glance told me they’d be best read at home, not because of nefarious undertones, but because I feared them likely to throw me too much into the honeymoon spirit. I was not at the
yal?
and so had to contain the emotions coursing through me as I devoured page after page.

“Satisfactory reading?” Colin asked, slipping into the chair across from me. I’d no idea how much time had passed since he’d left me. Poetry, it seemed, was an undeniable distraction.

“You have no idea.”

“Ceyden’s book?” he asked. I hardly looked up, nodding in reply. “Are the notes useful?”

“I have not yet read them. They seemed to be written in Greek, but closer examination proved that wrong.”

“A code?”

“I’m afraid so,” I said.

“I doubt it’s a difficult one. What have you tried to crack it?”

“Nothing. I’m entirely distracted.” I flipped pages and read to him:

You’ve so distracted me,

your absence fans my love.

Don’t ask how.

Then you come near.

“Do not . . . ,” I say, and

“Do not . . . ,” you answer.

Don’t ask why

this delights me.

“Ah, Rumi. How far have you got in the book? It gets even better.”

“Rumi, yes, you’re right,” I said. I had not been, before now, much familiar with the works of the famous thirteenth-century Persian poet. “Is there anything you don’t know?”

“Sadly, yes. All too much, in fact.”

“How does it get better?”

“Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absentminded. / Someone sober will worry about things going badly. / Let the lover be.”

“Lovely, but a bit tame,” I said, smiling.

“Keep reading, my dear. Keep reading.”

“Can’t you just recite the good parts to me?”

“Maybe later, if you’re well behaved.” A waiter placed a glass cup of tea nestled on a bronze saucer in front of him. “Don’t you want to know what I learned from Sir Richard?”

“Of course,” I said.

“The cross is Benjamin’s. He recognized it at once. Furthermore, he had noticed his son hasn’t been wearing it of late and asked him about it.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Quite. Benjamin said he’d lost it when the bandits attacked him en route to Constantinople after he’d learned of Ceyden’s death.”

“This is dreadful,” I said. “Did you tell him about the messenger?”

“I felt it the right thing to do. He was deeply concerned, but convinced that his son could not have been involved in the murder.”