The Tournament (37 page)

My teacher seemed to ponder this for a moment. ‘Why did I do it? Because no matter how this tournament ends—and I imagine it will probably end with the result the Sultan desires—in my humble opinion the Sultan needed to be made aware that
someone
knew of his cheating. I suppose, more than anything, he offended my British sense of fairness.’

‘Your British sense of fairness?’ I said, astonished.

‘Bess, I have always felt that there is something very special about Britain and the men and women who inhabit it. We stand shoulder to shoulder in battle, we gird ourselves against the coldest winds and rain, and we only ask—we
only
ask—that any fight be fair.’

I just shook my head and smiled.

Apparently, the match between Zaman and Brother Raul was still going, having entered a seventh and final game. Since the sun had set, it was reputedly being finished under the glow of a thousand candles.

After the terror of the confrontation with the fiend and our rather chilling conversation with the Sultan, neither Mr Ascham nor I felt like returning to watch the chess match.

‘We already know who will win,’ my teacher said as we headed back to our quarters. ‘Zaman will emerge victorious.’

And, of course, Zaman did emerge victorious, in almost exactly the same way as he had done against the Muscovite: after losing two early games, he miraculously figured out Brother Raul’s attacking patterns and started to counter them almost before Brother Raul enacted them. Zaman soon led by three games to two.

Raul, however, was a strong and canny player and he adapted his tactics and managed to tie the match at three games apiece. But in that final, tense, candlelit game, Zaman would triumph, ultimately beating the Church’s man four games to three. At the end of it, Brother Raul slumped against the table, completely exhausted. He later said it felt like he had been playing five men instead of one.

And so Zaman progressed to the final round, to the utter delight of the crowd. As far as they knew, the two local champions had conquered the best players in the world to make the final.

And as the people of Constantinople left the Hagia Sophia that evening, they murmured excitedly about the deciding match to be played the following day. They praised their god and their sultan, and all was right with their world.

But as evening became night and the moon and the stars rose over that ancient city, all was not right in my world.

For while my teacher had solved his riddle and we packed our trunks in anticipation of departing Constantinople the next morning, one thing was amiss.

Elsie had not returned from her lunch with the Crown Prince.

Elsie had disappeared.

THE OBJECT OF CHESS
is to checkmate the king. But curiously, while the king is the crux of the game, he is the most impotent piece on the board. Even pawns can become queens and every other piece can move more than one square.

And so the king in chess is like a king in life: his continued reign depends upon his keeping his castles intact and his subjects onside. He is hostage to his people’s continued happiness.

But a warning: ignore the king at your peril. He can most certainly still take other pieces and in a tense endgame, he is to be watched carefully, for when threatened he is prone to attack.

From:
Chess in the Middle Ages
,
Tel Jackson (W.M. Lawry & Co., London, 1992)

I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England, too.

–
QUEEN ELIZABETH I

DAWN WOKE ME ON
my last day in Constantinople and no sooner were my eyes open than they darted to Elsie’s bed, expecting to see her lying there, having returned from another long night of debauchery.

But her bed lay empty, untouched.

I found Mr Ascham and Mr Giles in their rooms, closing their trunks.

‘Elsie is missing,’ I said.

‘Missing?’ my teacher said.

‘I have not seen her since lunch yesterday, when she went off to dine with the Crown Prince and his friends in the city.’

‘Ah, yes, the Crown Prince . . .’ Mr Ascham said. ‘This is where she has been sneaking off to in the evenings. To
gatherings
hosted by Crown Prince Selim.’

‘Yes. But she has always been back by morning.’

My teacher swapped a glance with Mr Giles.

Mr Giles said, ‘The Crown Prince is a notorious carouser.’

‘But why would she not return?’ Mr Ascham said.

‘Perhaps he has asked Elsie to marry him,’ I suggested helpfully. ‘It is what she wanted more than anything else. Elsie told me they, well, consummated their relationship just the other night, so maybe he asked her to marry him and she went back to the Harem to see her future home.’

Mr Ascham’s face darkened.

‘Wait a moment, Bess. Are you saying that Elsie had relations with the Crown Prince himself?’

My face reddened. ‘Well . . .’

‘Please, tell me. It might be important.’

‘She did. She tried for several nights to attract his attention and on the final occasion, she ensnared him. Elsie thought pleasuring him might be a good way to impress him and thus become his queen—’

‘
When
did she bed him?’ my teacher asked with an exactness that surprised me.

‘When?’

‘Yes,
when
? Three nights ago? Two? When?’

I thought for a moment. ‘It was the night before last. The evening before he invited her to lunch with him in the city. She had flirted with him greatly before then, but it was only on that night that they actually consummated their desire.’

‘Did she dine with him in the city on any other occasion? Lunch, dinner?’

‘No. This was the first time.’

‘So the day after he plucks her, he invites her to the city, and then she disappears. Oh, my God . . .’ my teacher said. ‘Foolish, foolish girl.’

He started moving quickly. He threw some final objects into his trunk and slammed the lid. ‘Bess, get your things. It’s time for us to leave this accursed city.’

‘What about Elsie?’

‘I have an idea where she has gone and we shall try to grab her on our way out, if that is indeed possible.’

‘If it is
possible
?’ I said, shocked. ‘Why? What do you think has become of her? Where do you think she is?’

‘She has most certainly not become a queen, of that I am certain,’ Mr Ascham said. ‘If she is where I think she is, she is in a whole new world of horror.’

When the three of us were ready to depart, we moved toward the outer door of our lodgings.

It was only then that Mr Giles noticed that sometime during the night, someone had slipped an envelope under the door.

It was a scarlet envelope, just like the one we had brought with us to the tournament.

‘It’s addressed to Bess,’ Mr Giles said, surprised.

He handed it to me. I turned it over in my hands.

It was indeed addressed to me: ‘For Princess Elizabeth Tudor’. It was also sealed with fine red wax that was imprinted with the circular seal of the Sultan himself.

‘You can read it later, Bess,’ Mr Ascham said. ‘It is time for us to leave.’

And so we departed our lodgings at Topkapi Palace, not in a blaze of pomp and ceremony, but in quiet, almost shameful, anonymity.

On our way out we stopped by the eunuchs’ quarters, where we found Latif with his bald head heavily bandaged. Mr Ascham wanted to return his ornate bow to him, but the eunuch would have none of it.

‘Please, keep it.’ Latif handed Mr Ascham the matching quiver. ‘I owe my life to you and your bright young student here.’ He nodded at me. ‘Keep my bow and its arrows as a gift from me and a reminder of your time here.’

‘Thank you,’ my teacher said.

‘Oh, and sir,’ Latif said as we made to leave. ‘The Sultan’s guards went down into the cisterns this morning in search of the boy. The other children were long gone, but the guards found Pietro’s body. He had weighed down his pockets with heavy stones and drowned himself.’

A great sadness came over me. Poor Pietro.

‘You guessed he would do this . . .’ I said to my teacher.

‘He couldn’t have known the trail of destruction he would set in motion,’ Mr Ascham said. He took my hand and we left the eunuchs’ quarters.

At the palace gates, Mr Ascham, Mr Giles and I put our trunks on the back of a wagon pulled by a donkey and left the palace for good, farewelled by no-one, not by our host the Sultan, his son the Crown Prince, or even by our friend Michelangelo.

We were leaving in stealth.

My teacher looked about us cautiously as we made our way down the wide boulevard that led away from the palace and past the mighty Hagia Sophia, as if searching for assassins behind every corner.

‘We will meet the Ponsonbys and our English escorts at the Golden Gate,’ he said, ‘and only then will I feel something akin to safety.’

We passed the Hagia Sophia. A colossal throng of spectators, larger than any we had seen previously, spilled out from every door of the massive cathedral, all of them trying to get in to see the all-Moslem final between Zaman and Ibrahim.

Not one of them noticed us passing by.

I was still very alarmed that we were leaving the palace without Elsie.

‘She’s not in the palace,’ Mr Ascham said as he strode through the streets. ‘And if she’s not where I think she is, then we have no hope of finding her in this sprawling city.’

A few corners later, he turned suddenly and led us down a wide street. To my surprise, it was a street I had seen before.

It was the boulevard containing the establishment of Afridi, the gaudily dressed whoremonger, the one who had argued with Cardinal Cardoza about stealing his business; the one who owned several whorehouses in Constantinople of which this was the largest.

We stopped in front of the brothel with its Roman-era lower half and newer upper half.

‘Here?’ I asked. ‘What makes you think Elsie is here?’

‘Just stay close to me,’ my teacher said. ‘Giles, do you have your sword?’

Mr Giles revealed his sword beneath his cloak, and it was only then that I saw that Mr Ascham carried Latif’s bow underneath his oilskin coat with an arrow already notched.

We were going into that place armed.

An oily bearded Arab greeted us at the streetside door. ‘Good sirs, hello! How are you? How may I help you? We have many girls available right now, as most of the city is out watching the chess match—’

Mr Ascham just brushed past him, marched inside.

He strode across the main chamber of the brothel, heading straight for the room with the gold-painted door.

‘Hey! Wait there!’ the bearded Arab wailed, but my teacher arrived at the room and threw open its glittering door.

‘Oh, Lord . . .’ he said as I caught up with him. ‘Wait, Bess! No! Don’t look . . .’

But it was too late. I had already caught a glimpse—a fleeting glimpse—of what lay beyond the golden doorway and even though I saw it only for the briefest of moments, it was an image that would stay with me for the rest of my life.

What I saw sickened me.

Through the half-opened doorway I glimpsed Elsie: sweet Elsie; a silly girl, yes, reckless, too, but she didn’t deserve this.