The Aviary Gate (39 page)

‘But not enough, I fear. That other business, Paul, the girl … That day, the last time you were here, I feared you were angry with me. I refused you, and I'm sorry for it—'

‘Please, don't,' Paul put his hand up, ‘don't say any more, it was wrong of me even to ask.'

They fell silent, looking out at the night.

‘And Carew?' Jamal said at last. ‘He is quite well?'

‘Thank you, yes.'

‘I'm guessing that it would take rather more than a few days in a cellar to discompose your Carew too badly.'

‘You guess right.'

‘And your ambassador, Sir Henry Lello, I hope he didn't take it too badly? Battalions of janissaries banging on your doors?'

‘We managed to keep it from Sir Henry until after you let Carew go. No harm done there either. I am told the vizier mentioned it when he came to call on the ambassador this morning – full of apologies for the mistake – so, far from being disgraced, if anything the embassy has made some gains from it all. The mechanical organ is finally repaired, and it's to be presented to the Sultan at last. Tomorrow in fact.'

‘So Sir Henry will have his credentials?'

‘Yes.'

‘All is well, then?'

‘Yes, in that respect all is well,' Paul said. He looked around the rooftop terrace. ‘You said you had something to show me?'

‘Yes. It's something I've been working on these last few months. I wanted you to be the first to see it.'

He held out a curious-looking object, a long narrow cylinder about two feet in length, crudely made of leather, narrow at one end, slightly broader at the other.

‘Is this it?' Paul's grave look left him, ‘What kind of a fairground toy do you call this?' He took the cylinder from Jamal.

‘Ah! So you've seen them too?' Jamal was watching Paul eagerly.

‘In a tinker's tray, yes, I believe I have,' Paul said with amusement, ‘and in good Mr Pearl's shop in Bishopsgate, where Merchant Parvish used to get his spectacle supplies.'

He held it up, and inspected the instrument at both ends: not one, but three interconnected cylinders, covered in shagreen.

‘A child's spyglass, Jamal? A very pretty one, I grant you, but … well, I thought you must have discovered the Philosopher's Stone, at least.'

‘Now what would I want with the Philosopher's Stone? What nonsense you talk,' Jamal said, taking the cylinder back. ‘And as a matter of fact it
was
spectacle lenses that gave me the idea. But this is no child's toy, I can assure you. The outside may look crude, but it is a work not fully realised yet, Paul. The beauty, the craft of it, can come later. Its genius lies in these two simple lenses: here and here.' He pointed to two thick discs of transparent glass held in place at either end of the cylinder. ‘This one is a weak convex lens; the other,
a strong concave lens. Nothing very special about either of them. But if you put them together like this, with the concave lens nearest the eye …' He put one end of the spyglass against his eye, and trained the other up into the sky. ‘Well, that's what I've brought you here to see for yourself. Here, it's quite heavy; rest it on this.' He pulled over a wooden stand and helped Paul to balance it on top. See for yourself.'

He stood back while the Englishman drew close and trained the spyglass to his eye.

‘I can see nothing,' Paul said after some time, ‘only blackness.'

‘You must be patient,' Jamal came over and swung the cylinder round so that he could stand behind it, ‘it takes time for your eyes to adjust. And it's easier if you decide what you're going to look for.'

‘What about the moon? That's big enough.'

‘No. This is what I want you to see. Jamal swung the cylinder so that it was pointing high at the luminous band of milky light which rippled across the night sky. Paul took the instrument from him and looked again. He looked for a long time in complete silence. When he finally turned to Jamal again it was with a strange, dazzled look.

‘Stars, Jamal, thousands, no, millions of them …'

‘Millions upon millions, Paul. More stars than we ever thought could possibly exist.'

‘It's incredible.'

‘My instrument has the power to bring everything closer. The glass lenses, you see. I had the idea just after I took to using spectacles myself, that and a little help from Ibn al-Haytham's work on optics, the
Kitab al-Manazir
,' Jamal said, looking modest. ‘When you use them on their own the lenses don't have much strength, but used together, one in front of the other, well, you can see for yourself how powerful they are.'

‘Extraordinary.' Paul turned back to the eyepiece again. ‘Quite extraordinary. How much closer?'

‘I estimate about twenty times closer,' Jamal shrugged, ‘perhaps a little more.'

‘So the luminous haze we can all see across the night sky is actually made of stars,' Paul repeated, ‘millions upon millions of stars,' he put his eye back to the lens, ‘it's unbelievable.'

‘I've seen many things you wouldn't believe, Paul.'

‘The moon?'

‘But of course. And Venus. With this instrument I've been able to establish that Venus has phases, just like the moon. I can show them to you.'

Rubbing a hand over his eyes, Paul stepped away from the instrument. He went and stood leaning up against the balustrades of the rooftop, gazing up into the starry firmament.

‘I believe that your heretic doctor was quite right in the model he proposes,' Jamal said.

‘Nicolaus Copernicus?'

‘Oh, yes,' Jamal smiled. ‘What I have just shown you proves without question that the universe is infinitely bigger than anyone ever dreamt.'

‘And that it is not the sky that is moving at all,' Paul turned to Jamal, ‘but us?'

‘Why not? What's more I believe that my instrument can help prove it.' The astronomer gave Paul one of his mischievous smiles. ‘You Christians, always so stuck in your ways.'

Jamal came and stood next to Paul and for a few moments they contemplated the sky in silence together.

‘When I first became an astronomer, many years ago now,' Jamal said after a while, ‘my task was about making maps: maps of the sky and of the fixed stars. My job was to predict the motions of the sun, the moon and the planets, and the times of particular events such as eclipses, oppositions, conjunctions, solstices, equinoxes and the rest. To reason why they happened was not supposed to be part of my concern. These events happened, but I was not supposed to look for causes behind these events. But now—' he pointed to the cylinder, ‘I find I can't be satisfied with that any more. I have to look for the reasons behind things.'

‘And I, I too have to look for the reasons behind things, Jamal,' Paul said. ‘I have seen further, tonight, than perhaps any Englishman has ever seen, and yet … and yet Jamal, I must be frank with you, there are things right here, right beneath my very nose, that aren't altogether as clear to me as I'd like them to be. Before I go, I need to know, you see.'

‘Before you go?'

‘She wants me gone, Jamal. The Valide. When the
Hector
sails the day after tomorrow, Carew and I are to be on that ship.'

Jamal looked at Paul sorrowfully. ‘And I shall miss you, Paul Pindar Aga, more than I can say.'

‘What's this? No surprise? No questions? Aren't you going to ask
why
she wants me gone?'

‘I think we both know the answer to that, don't you?'

As he spoke, Jamal pulled the hood of his robe over his head, so that his face was hidden in shadow. Paul had the odd impression that he seemed taller, thinner, suddenly.

‘What's the matter, Paul?' Jamal took a step towards him. ‘You look at me strangely.'

‘Do I?' Instinctively Paul took a step back. ‘Perhaps it's one of the things I need to know. What's this really all about? Who are you, Jamal?'

‘Don't be absurd, you know who I am. The astronomer, Jamal al-Andalus.'

‘But is that all you are?'

‘I did not know that metaphysics was one of your interests,' the astronomer said drily.

‘I came here the other day to ask for your help, because I knew that you came and went freely to the palace. Neither of us guessed just how freely. That woman who came for you, Esperanza Malchi—'

‘Ah, so you found out about her, I wondered if you might.'

‘Carew did, he's useful like that. This Malchi woman is one of the Valide's most trusted servants. And the most feared, so my informants tell me. And yet you're on good terms with her—'

‘Your
informants
…'

‘You knew all about the Chief Black Eunuch, and about Carew's sugar ship,' Paul went on. ‘You hid Carew here to protect him, then released him again the moment they found the real culprit, all without fuss, without clamour, without so much as the smallest ripple penetrating the palace as far as I can tell, all before the Grand Vizier himself could so much as sneeze.' Paul paused. ‘How did you do all that?'

‘Well, yes, I must confess, I was rather proud of how smoothly it all went—'

‘And then there's all this.' Paul gestured to Jamal's new stargazing instrument. ‘Carew was right. You have an extraordinary collection of things here, Jamal. The finest precision instruments that I've ever
seen: astrolabes, globes, maps, books. Where did they all come from?'

‘Perhaps you'd like to ask your informants that too?' Jamal was no longer smiling. ‘You spy on me – and then you have the temerity to think that you'll get me to spy
for
you as well.'

‘No, not spy. I just wanted information—'

‘Is there a difference?'

‘Of course there is.'

‘No one at the palace would see it like that. You foreigners are all the same, like children. You always want to know about the things which are
haram
. Don't think that you're the first one who's tried it with me.'

‘I'm sorry, but God knows I had good reasons. Surely you can see that?' Paul ran his hand through his hair. ‘This is Celia we're talking about, the woman I loved – whom I still love,' there was desperation in Paul's voice now, ‘the woman who was going to be my wife. All these years I've thought she was
dead
, Jamal. And then it turns out she's not dead, but living here, right here in Constantinople. All this time, right beneath my very nose.' Paul laid his head in his hands. ‘And I have done nothing to help her!'

‘Suppose Carew was mistaken?'

‘He wasn't mistaken,' Paul thrust a piece of paper at Jamal, ‘here, look at this.'

‘What is it?'

‘It's a picture of a lamprey, a kind of fish like an eel. It's a pun, a play on her name. Dallam found it hidden in the organ.'

Without speaking Jamal handed it back to him.

‘What? Have you nothing to say? She knows I'm here, Jamal, I'm sure of it—'

‘You still don't understand do you, Englishman? The women's quarters of any man's household, let alone the Sultan's, are
haram
,' Jamal repeated himself slowly, as though to a child, ‘that means forbidden, absolutely forbidden, to all other men. Not only by sight, but by word, by thought, even. If your girl Celia Lamprey really is in the House of Felicity as you say, then she belongs to the Sultan now. She does not exist for you any longer. No matter what she was before, she is his slave now; she belongs to him. Nothing – nothing short of a miracle – can change that.'

Jamal sighed. ‘And I thought you were different, Paul.' He looked down at the shagreen cylinder. ‘I thought you came here because you were interested in my work for its own sake.'

‘Don't be absurd, you know I did,' Paul said with a look of anguish.

‘Yes,' Jamal said, more gently this time, ‘I know you did. I looked into my heart and I saw what you really were: an honest man. Even when I knew that things between us were – how shall I phrase it? – not all that they seemed.'

‘It's just that I thought I knew you.' Paul rubbed a fist across his forehead. ‘And then you seemed like a stranger suddenly.'

‘When it is you that is the stranger, Paul.' Jamal looked at him sorrowfully. ‘I forget sometimes that that is what you are: a stranger in our land. You must speak, say what it is you have come to tell me with confidence. But first here, come with me,' he put his hand on Paul's arm, ‘the night is becoming cold, and you are chilled.'

Jamal took Paul back down to his observatory. A small brazier was burning in one corner and the room was warm. One of Jamal's servants came in, bringing them tiny glasses of hot mint tea.

‘You must sit here awhile and get warm again,' Jamal told him. ‘And while you drink the tea I will tell you something, something that I hope will explain why I helped Carew.'

‘When I was a child, barely ten years old,' Jamal began, ‘I was apprenticed to a scribe, one of the palace calligraphers. I was a dextrous and able boy, and I soon learnt my trade, and learnt it well, but I was never satisfied by it.

‘Something in my belly made me want more from life than copying words other people had written, even if they were sometimes holy words, suras from the Qu'ran. Next to my master's workshop in the palace was the workshop of another craftsman, a man who made clocks, sundials and instruments of all kinds for the Sultan. I grew fascinated by the things in his workshop, not just because they were things of beauty, but because of what they were used for. I spent all the time that I could with this other master, learning everything that I could persuade him to show me, including the rudiments of arithmetic and geometry, to the amazement of the other craftsmen, and the despair of my real master. Fortunately for me he was a good man, almost like a father to me, and when he realised that he couldn't beat
these interests out of me, and that I had a real mathematical ability, somehow he arranged it that I should attend the palace school.