The Aviary Gate (40 page)

‘I was very happy at the school. At last, I had a sense that I was doing the thing that God meant me to do. Soon it became clear that I was a boy with very unusual abilities. Within a few years I had learnt everything that the teachers could show me about mathematics, but I didn't care. I carried on, teaching myself when I had to. All I cared about was numbers, their beauty and their clarity. In the Christian world you think that the universe turns to the music of the spheres, but you see, Paul, I know that the language of the universe, its deepest and most profound music, is numbers.' Jamal sat back with a smile. ‘Most of the other boys of my age were only interested in archery, or in horses, and there was I, puzzling over the problems in Euclid!

‘When I was thirteen, Sultan Selim died, and his son, Sultan Murad, the present Sultan's father, came to power. He brought with him his old teacher and scholar, Hoja Sa'd al-Din, who took an interest in me. This man, by good fortune, was a friend of the head astronomer Takiuddin. For some years Takiuddin had wished to have a new observatory built in Constantinople. The available astronomical tables had become outdated, and he wanted to compile new ones, based on fresh observations. When he came to the Sultan and the Diwan – the Council of Viziers – with his proposal, Hoja Sa'd al-Din was one of the principal supporters of the project. Takiuddin built his observatory, very near here in the Tophane quarter of Galata, and two years later when it was ready I was accepted there as one of his principal assistants.

‘Well, you know what happened,' Jamal sighed. ‘That same year, 1577, a great comet appeared in the sky. Takiuddin prepared a prognostication for the Sultan. The comet, he told him, was a harbinger of good tidings, and a sign that the Ottoman armies would win victory in the wars against Persia. He was right, of course. The Persians were defeated – but the Ottoman armies suffered greatly at the same time. Furthermore, a plague struck our city that year, and a number of important officials died, all within a short space of time of one another. Hardly the propitious tidings that my master had predicted.

‘My old patron, Hoja Sa'd al-Din, and his ally the Grand Vizier Soqullu Mehmet Pasha, had made some dangerous enemies at court. One of them was the Sheik al-Islam – the principal authority on
Islamic law in Constantinople. This Sheik went to the Sultan and tried to persuade him that it was the observatory itself which was the cause of these evils. To pry into the secrets of nature, he said, could only bring misfortune upon us all. Indeed, empires in which observatories were built, he claimed, were known to suffer speedy dissolution.

‘At first the Sultan didn't want to listen to him as he was a man who greatly respected learning, but eventually, after some years, the Sheik and his faction prevailed. A wrecking squad was sent – and, well, you know the rest,' Jamal said sombrely. ‘There was no warning, they just burst in on us all one day. The viewing tower, all our instruments, the library, our charts: priceless. Irreparable. Worst of all, our team was dispersed. We were disgraced. Where could we go? What could we do? All our precious work had been destroyed. Most of the other assistants had families they could return to, but I had no one. I came here, to this tower.

‘This place, which was still surrounded by fields, was known as the Small Observatory, part of the larger complex, and a little apart from it. It too was wrecked by the Sultan's halberdiers, but not so thoroughly as the larger observatory. There was just enough of it left standing for me to build a makeshift shelter in one part of it. It was from here that I salvaged some of the books, some of the smaller instruments.

‘When the people of the town heard that one of the astronomers was still living out here, wild as a hermit, they began to come and see me. Cautiously at first. They were simple people for the most part, with only a very rudimentary idea of what astronomy is about. At first they'd ask me for small things: to interpret their dreams; or to cast horoscopes for them at the birth of a child or when they needed to find a propitious date for a wedding or a circumcision. Gradually their requests became a little more complicated. Sometimes they'd ask for charms, or talismans, for protection against the Evil Eye, against sickness, that kind of thing. And just occasionally … something stronger.'

‘Sorcery, you mean?'

‘Is that what you'd call it?' Jamal looked at Paul quizzically. ‘Well, for the most part it was harmless enough. Sometimes it was no more than a few verses from the Qu'ran wrapped up in a little cloth bag. I
could still write with a fair calligrapher's hand, remember. As I say, harmless enough stuff. Most of the time.'

‘And then?'

‘And then one day I had a visit from someone who changed everything: a black eunuch from the palace. His name was Hassan Aga.'

‘The Chief Black Eunuch?'

‘The very same. Although this was more than twenty years ago, so he wasn't the Chief Black Eunuch then, of course.'

‘And he asked you to cast a horoscope for him?'

‘Not exactly. He said that there was a very great lady who desired my services, although it was of course a matter of the utmost secrecy. If I could help her, I would be rewarded beyond my wildest dreams. But if I ever divulged the nature of her request,' Jamal gave a rueful smile, ‘I would end up a gelded man, just like him.'

‘And did you help her?'

‘Actually, I refused. A wise man wouldn't normally dare to refuse a request from the palace, but I did. The nature of her request so terrified me that at first I didn't dare – even if I had been able to help her, which I doubted. But between them they worked on me. I could rebuild the tower, they said, they would provide me with new instruments, new books. I could work again, as an independent scholar, pursuing whatever interests I liked, under her patronage this time.'

‘A powerful lady.'

‘Oh yes.'

‘So what did she want you to do?'

‘She wanted me to put a spell on the Sultan. A spell to make him unable to lie with any woman other than herself.'

‘To make him impotent, you mean?'

‘Precisely.'

‘Who was this woman?'

‘In those days she was the Haseki, the Sultan's favourite. You know her as Safiye Sultan.'

Paul stared at Jamal.

‘Did it work?' he said after a few moments.

‘Ha!' Jamal gave a sudden shout of laughter. ‘My talisman? Of course it worked.' Then, serious again, he added, ‘For a while. The Sultan Murad had been faithful to Safiye for nearly twenty years. It was something of a scandal, to tell you the truth. It was common knowledge
that he took no other concubines; chose to father his children only by her. But when he came back to Constantinople as Sultan things changed. For a start, his mother Nurbanu was here, and she hated Safiye and was jealous of the power she had over her son. It was she who was instrumental in trying to persuade Murad to take new concubines. She and her daughter Ïsmihan searched high and low to find the most beautiful slave girls in the empire, but to no avail. Despite the fact that Safiye Sultan was no longer young by then, he had eyes only for her.' Jamal took a sip from the tiny glass of mint tea, replacing it carefully on the table next to him. ‘And then, one day,' he went on, ‘they found someone. Two women, in fact, a pair of slave girls, beautiful as angels. As soon as she saw them, Safiye knew she was beaten. It was then that she sent for me.'

Jamal took another sip from the glass. ‘The talisman I made for her worked for a long time. As hard as he tried the Sultan could honour no one but the Haseki herself. But then they found it.'

‘The talisman?'

Jamal nodded. ‘One of her handmaids took the blame, so they told me, and was thrown into the Bosphorous for her pains.'

‘And Safiye – what happened to her?'

‘She took to finding girls for the Sultan herself, each one more beautiful than the next – and in all he fathered nineteen children with them before his death—'

‘But she kept his heart for herself?'

‘Something like that, I suppose.'

‘So that's how you built your tower. All the astrolabes, the globes. Your library.'

‘Yes, Safiye Sultan has been as good as her word. A great patroness, and generous, too.'

‘And you still work for her sometimes?'

‘Over the years –' Jamal nodded slowly, ‘from time to time. But until that business recently with Hassan Aga, she had not asked anything of me for many years, even though I go to the palace often to teach at the school. The Valide knew that Carew had nothing to do with the poisoning, and she asked me to help. That's all.

‘You should know that I am not the only one she uses, Paul. There are many of us whom the Valide can call on if she needs to. She calls me her physician. When Hassan Aga was poisoned I was called in to help.
I was reluctant then, too.' He shook his head again. ‘The man had taken so much poison – he was beyond my help and I think even she knew it. It's God's work that he's still alive, I tell you. That and—'

‘And what?'

‘Who knows?' Jamal shrugged. ‘He must have something very precious to live for. But he's a eunuch, after all, so who knows what that might be?'

When Jamal had finished his story, Paul sat for a moment in silence, looking down at his hands. He felt so weary suddenly he could not speak, could hardly think.

‘And what about me, Jamal?' he said, closing his eyes, tilting his head back and resting it against the wall. The bitter taste of defeat, like ashes, slurred his words. ‘Am I to have nothing precious to live for?'

‘You have everything to live for.' Jamal looked at him with compassion. ‘But let me give you some advice. Go home, Paul. The Valide has given you a chance. You won't get another one.'

Dawn was breaking when the two men said goodbye to one another at last.

‘Until we meet again, Paul Pindar Aga.'

‘Until we meet again.'

They embraced.

‘Jamal?'

‘My friend?'

‘One last favour?'

‘Anything,' Jamal smiled, ‘what's this?'

‘My compendium.'

‘Yes, I can see that.'

Jamal stood with Paul's compendium in the palm of his hand.

‘Get it to her. Please.'

For what seemed to Paul like a long, long time, the astronomer looked at it, saying nothing.

‘It's not a look; it's not a word, not even a thought,' Paul said, ‘but she'll understand. At least she'll know I tried.'

‘Very well.' Jamal took it from him. ‘It's as I've already said, Paul Pindar, there's no
man
on earth who can help you but – perhaps – there's someone else who can.'

It was not until the morning after her trip up the Bosphorous with Mehmet that Elizabeth was able to open the email from her supervisor, Dr Alis.

My dear Elizabeth,

So glad you're having a productive time in Istanbul. Good news this end: the department have approved your transference from MLitt to DPhil. We can discuss where we go from here when you get back, but in the meantime here's a scan of the portrait you asked for, hope it's clearer than your copy …

Without waiting to read the rest of the message, Elizabeth clicked on the attachment. After a few moments a message popped on to the screen:
there is a temporary problem accessing this page, click the refresh button, or please try later
. She clicked on ‘refresh', the timer whirled briefly, but still nothing happened.

Damn! She went back to the message, scrolled through until she found where she had left off:

… hope it's clearer than your copy. In case you're wondering the object he's holding is called a compendium, a part-mathematical, part-astronomical instrument. If you look carefully you'll see that it is composed of a number of different parts: a nocturnal, a magnetic compass, a table of latitudes and an equinoctial dial. In practice the whole thing would have folded up into the outer brass case, small
enough to fit into a pocket (rather like a modern fob watch and chain) but as you can see he is holding it open for the viewer. Rather more unusually, this one seems to have some kind of extra compartment at the bottom, probably for keeping something in: drawing implements, perhaps? What you have to ask yourself is, why did he choose to be painted with it? What's its significance? The Elizabethans loved symbols, codes of this kind. Perhaps the date (just visible in the bottom right hand corner) will give you a clue.

There's a date? Damn this machine! Impatiently Elizabeth tried the attachment again, but the message was the same as before:
click the refresh button, or please try again later
. Why was there always a glitch on these Internet café computers? There was nothing for it, she would have to wait until Monday to try again on one of the university terminals.

When she returned to Haddba's house she found an official-looking brown envelope waiting for her. It had a local postmark and was addressed to Bayan Elizabeth Staveley. Later that night she rang Eve.

‘Guess what, my permission to visit the archives has come through at last.'

‘About bloody time. What's the latest?'

Elizabeth told her about the portrait of Paul Pindar with the compendium, and Thomas Dallam's diary.

‘It's odd, but you know what I keep thinking about?'

‘What's that?'

‘I keep thinking about Pindar's house. Do you remember me telling you about it before?'

‘Mmm, vaguely. It was big, I seem to remember.'

‘More than that. Listen, let me read you this – I had a good trawl on Google again the other day, and this is what turned up.' Elizabeth took out her notes. ‘“One of the finest specimens of timber-framed domestic architecture in London, constructed about 1600 by a wealthy London merchant Paul Pindar”', she read. ‘The façade of the building turns out to have been rather famous. “A two-storey façade, jointed and carved oak with richly carved panels at the bottom of each bay on the first and second floors. Above this are windows made up of many pieces of glass.”'