The Aviary Gate (19 page)

‘There he comes now, Paul,' Glover made a space beside him. ‘By God! Here he comes, gentlemen, here he comes.'

Paul followed his gaze and saw the Sultan's barge pulling out smoothly from the royal boathouse at the water's edge. On board the
English ship the men in the rigging, the assembled company of merchants, even Lady Lello in all her holiday finery, were silent now, watching as the barge approached. And in that silence a strange sound, like the barking of so many dogs, could be heard, carrying faintly across the waters,

‘Listen!' Glover said. ‘Can you hear them? The oarsmen barking like dogs. They say they do it so that none of them can overhear the Sultan if he speaks.'

The barge was now nearly level with the
Hector
. As it grew closer Paul could see that twenty oarsmen dressed in red caps and white shirts rowed the great barge, at one end of which was a small raised poop, painted scarlet and gold, in which the Sultan rode, his presence carefully screened from prying eyes. The eerie sound of the barking oarsmen –
bough, bouhwah, bough, bough, boughwah
– sounded louder and louder. Behind the imperial barge came another, less finely decorated, in which Paul could make out a company of the Sultan's court attendants, dwarves and mutes dressed in brilliant silk robes. Each of them wore a curved sword at his hip, and several of them had hunting dogs, as finely dressed as their masters, in purple coats figured with gold and silver threads. Skimming swiftly over the waters, the barges circled the
Hector
once, and then were gone again, skimming away across the waters as suddenly as they had come.

On board the
Hector
the little knot of merchants clapped one another on the back and talked amongst themselves. Only Paul did not share their sense of elation. He felt weary to his bones, suddenly: managing Sir Henry, dealing with the other merchants, even his discussions with Glover had become a strain, as though he were playing a part, an actor on the stage.

Paul ran a hand over his eyes. There were times since his first conversation with Carew about Celia when he had thought he was going mad. At first his reaction had been sheer disbelief, followed by rage, but in his calmer moments he knew Carew would not lie. Gradually he had allowed himself to hope, and then to believe in the impossible. Celia, alive! Celia, living and breathing, flesh and blood. Then exultation had turned to despair. Celia alive, but incarcerated in a place where he could never hope to reach her. Or could he? At Jamal's house he had begun to hope again. At night he lay staring into darkness, sleepless, dreamless, wrestling with his thoughts. Two
years as a slave at the hands of the Turks. What had they done to her? He tried not to imagine, but it was impossible. With the slave master, the Sultan? With eunuchs? The thought made him feel as though his head might explode.

On the shore, a sudden flurry of movement caught his eye and he saw that another barge was now leaving the imperial boathouse. This one was smaller than the Sultan's, but more richly decorated. The screened cabin on the poop deck was inlaid with ivory and ebony; gold leaf and mother-of-pearl and carbuncles of precious stones glinted in the sun. The oarsmen rowed silently this time. Droplets of water from the ends of their wooden paddles described arcs of shining brilliants as the barge skimmed towards the English ship. Then, just a few feet short of her, it stopped.

Shading his eyes, Paul looked towards the screened cabin. Something green flashed in the sunlight. And then he knew: Safiye, the Valide Sultan herself, had also come to inspect the
Hector
. She did not stay long. At some hidden signal, the men took up their oars and the barge began to move again, only this time it did not return to the imperial boathouse, but set off swiftly in the opposite direction, towards the deep green waters, the steeply wooded and shadowed hills of the Bosphorous.

Paul stood alone once more, thinking hard. What could the Valide Sultan want? The ambassador seemed satisfied that it was to thank him again for the Queen's gift, which Paul had been deputed to deliver on the ambassador's behalf immediately after the
Hector
's arrival, but he was not so sure.

Not for the first time he thought back to that day, still the strangest of all the strange days that had passed since his arrival in Constantinople. Surrounded by her black eunuchs, and guarded by a battalion of Tressed Halberdiers, the Valide had been brought, in a carefully screened palanquin, into the courtyard where the coach waited for her. Of course Paul had not seen her – palace etiquette had proscribed even raising his eyes to the screen – but if anyone had thought to ask him he could have told them that there were many others ways of perceiving; that the presence behind the screen was so powerful that eyes had not been necessary to see this miraculous woman. Her voice alone was enough.

‘Venite, inglesi
. Come closer, Englishman.'

He remembered how when he first heard it, the hairs rose on the back of his neck. Company intelligence suggested that the Valide was an old woman, fifty at least. This was the voice of a woman who was still young.

‘Come closer, Englishman,' she had said to him once more. And seeing him eye the eunuchs, their hands at the ready upon their curved scimitars, she had laughed.
‘No aver paura
. Don't be afraid.'

And so he had approached the palanquin, and they had talked. How long had they talked for? Afterwards, Paul could not have said. He remembered only a certain perfume, like a night-scented garden, and when she moved, the distant glimmer of jewels.

The sight of the Valide's barge seemed to clear Paul's mind. He pushed his other thoughts away, and tried to concentrate instead on the other matter at hand. Here, almost miraculously, was another chance to enter the palace and, as if in answer to a prayer, with Carew, too. Carew could be a liability sometimes, but he had qualities that his detractors would never even guess at: eyes that missed nothing, nerves of steel and a quickness of wit in a tight situation that had sometimes struck Paul as a kind of devilry. There was no one Paul would rather have had with him than Carew, if you could find him, that was.

Paul looked around the
Hector
and cursed. Where was that good-for-nothing rat-catcher when you needed him? Disobeying orders as usual. It was only then that the thought struck him that he had not seen Carew at all that day. Impatiently, he looked round the decks, and even up in the rigging, but could see no sign of him.

Instead, Paul became aware of yet another vessel approaching the
Hector
. No imperial barge this time, but a small skiff which was being hurriedly and somewhat inexpertly rowed towards them, this time from the Galata shore. Paul watched. Two janissaries were holding the oars, their headdresses slipping with the exertion. Their strokes were so jagged that twice the little vessel nearly collided with passing water traffic. As the skiff drew closer, Paul could see the figures of some of the other embassy members crammed together in the back: the Reverend May and next to him two Company merchants recently arrived from Aleppo, Mr Sharp and Mr Lambeth. As the little vessel drew closer he saw that John Sanderson's apprentice, John Hanger, and the coachman, Ned Hall, were also rowing.

‘Well, they can row as hard as they like, they've missed the Great Man's inspection,' Thomas Glover had come to stand next to Paul, his broad arms akimbo.

‘No,' Paul shook his head slowly, straining his eyes towards the little group, ‘there's something wrong, look.'

When they saw Paul and Glover watching them, the two merchants started waving their hands in the air. The parson stood up and seemed to be shouting something through his cupped hands, although the wind bore his words soundlessly away.

‘That fool of a parson …' Glover said impatiently. ‘I don't like the look of this at all.'

‘Nor do I.'

At last the skiff drew up alongside the
Hector
. Now that they were within earshot, the men seemed unsure how to proceed.

‘Well, what news, gentlemen?' Paul called to them.

Lambeth, one of the merchants from Aleppo, got to his feet unsteadily.

‘It's your man Carew, Secretary Pindar.'

‘What about him, Mr Lambeth?' Paul's mouth felt dry.

‘Some janissaries came to arrest him.'

‘That scoundrel,' Paul felt Glover put a hand on his shoulder, ‘he'll be the death of us all.' Then: ‘On what grounds? What's he done?'

‘We don't know, they wouldn't say.'

Paul gripped the balustrade. ‘Where did they take him?'

‘Take him?' Lambeth took his cap off, and mopped his sweating forehead. ‘Oh no, they didn't take him. He wasn't there. We came to warn him. We thought he was with you.'

Glover looked at Paul. ‘Well?'

‘No, he's not here,' Paul answered grimly. ‘But I think I know where I might find him.'

At the house of Jamal al-Andalus the servant who had been in attendance the day before opened the door to Paul. At first the boy seemed reluctant to announce him, but eventually he was persuaded, and Paul went in only to find, to his discomfiture, that there had been some confusion at his unexpected arrival. In the antechamber in which he was usually asked to wait there was a good deal of moving and talking: the sound of Jamal's voice, the bang of a door closing abruptly, footsteps treading in an upper chamber. Then, as he waited, he could hear in the room above him what sounded like two people talking together, a man – Jamal, presumably – and, if Paul was not mistaken, a woman; their voices now soft, now loud, disputing together. After a few more minutes Jamal came out. He looked uncharacteristically harried. Was Paul imagining it, or did he catch a glimpse of a woman's black robes inside? He noticed that the astronomer made sure to shut the door carefully behind him.

‘I can wait, Jamal, if you have other business.'

‘No, no, you are most welcome, my friend. It's nothing of importance,' Jamal waved Paul's objections aside with his usual courtesy. ‘As a matter of fact there is something I want to discuss with you. Go to the tower,' he said, ‘we can talk there in a moment, no one can overhear us.'

‘It's about Carew,' Paul began when Jamal joined him in the tower a few minutes later. ‘He's disappeared, and I don't know why but I had an idea that you might …'

Jamal put a hand on Paul shoulder. ‘Carew is safe.'

For a moment Paul was stunned into silence. He stared at Jamal. ‘Where is he?' he said at last.

‘It is probably better if you don't know that. Not just yet.'

‘What are you talking about?' Paul ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. ‘It's absolutely vital that I find him. Some janissaries were sent to arrest him today—'

‘I know.'

‘—and I have to find him before they do …' Paul checked himself. ‘You know about the janissaries?'

‘Sit down, Paul, please.'

‘I don't think so,' Paul felt a sudden unexpected stab of anger towards the calm figure in white robes standing before him. ‘Forgive me, Jamal, but I don't have time for pleasantries. For God's sake, will you just tell me what's happened?'

If Jamal felt surprise at Paul's tone he did not show it. ‘Someone at the palace has been poisoned and they think it might have something to do with Carew.'

At Jamal's words, Paul felt a wave of nausea come over him. ‘But you say he's safe?'

‘He's being kept somewhere safe until the whole business can be sorted out.'

‘Where exactly is “somewhere safe”?'

‘I just told you, I can't tell you.'

There was a short, uncomfortable silence.

‘Who was poisoned?'

‘Hassan Aga, the Chief Black Eunuch.'

‘I see.' Paul wiped a hand quickly over his face.

‘He was found yesterday, collapsed somewhere in the palace gardens. No one knows how he got there, or what had happened to him.'

‘Is he dead?'

‘No, he's still alive. Very sick, but alive.'

‘And what could this possibly have to do with Carew?'

Jamal did not answer Paul immediately. He picked up a piece of polished glass from amongst the articles on the tabletop near him, weighing it carefully in his hands.

‘Did John make some figures out of spun sugar, including one in the shape of a ship? I believe you told me once that he is highly skilled in these things.'

‘We call them subtleties. And, yes, Carew is a master of them.' Paul felt himself go cold; there was a prickling sensation on the back of his neck. ‘Don't tell me,' he put his head in his hands, ‘please, don't tell me they are saying that it was Carew's sugar ship that poisoned the Chief Black Eunuch.'

‘Poor John,' Jamal's expression was almost apologetic, ‘he is rather accident prone, isn't he?'

‘I'll say.' In his mind's eye Paul slid his hands around Carew's neck, pressing with both thumbs against that scrawny windpipe until his face turned purple and his eyeballs bulged. But then a thought struck him. ‘But this is absurd! What possible motive could Carew have to put poison into a subtlety? We're trying to impress the Sultan, for God's sake, not poison him! No, no, I'll bet my life I know who's behind this, either the Baillo, or de Brèves. Probably both for all we know.'

‘The Venetian and the French ambassadors?' Jamal raised his eyebrows. ‘Surely not.'

‘Oh, don't look so surprised. They've been intriguing against us ever since we got here, trying to stop us renewing our trading rights with the Porte—'

‘Wait, Paul, you go too fast,' Jamal held up his hands. ‘At the moment I think it may be the case that no one knows
what
to think. Hassan Aga is still too ill to give any proper account of what happened, but the unfortunate fact is that “the English ship”, as they are calling it, is the only thing that he has said since he was found.'