The Aviary Gate (47 page)

On board the
Hector
, the merchantman so big it dwarfed all other vessels around it, Celia could just make out tiny figures swarming up the rigging and up the masts; a lone sailor stood high above the others in the crow's-nest.

‘I see the English ship is preparing for its voyage home,' the Valide said at last.

‘So they tell me,' Celia began, but she found suddenly that she could not go on. ‘I'm sorry—' she put her hand to her throat, she could not breathe, could not even swallow, ‘I'm sorry, Majesty …'

‘Come, come, don't be sorry. All shall be well, Kaya Kadin. It has to be this way.' As she spoke the Valide put her hand out to the white cat asleep on the cushions beside her, sinking her fingers deep into his fur. ‘When we first met, I remember saying to you that one day you would tell me your story. And now, I believe, is the time. Will you? Will you trust me?'

The weeping girl looked up, and to her surprise she saw that, like her own, Safiye Sultan's eyes were bright with tears. They looked at one another for a long time.

‘Yes,' Celia said at last, ‘I will.'

As Elizabeth left Marius in the café the first flakes of snow had begun to fall at last, and soon the city was carpeted in white. It had become very cold. On the other side of the Galata Bridge the ghostly domes and turrets of the old city glittered in the water. The air was pure, and so icy it almost hurt to breathe.

As before she met Mehmet on the dockside.

‘Here, I thought you might like to borrow this,' he said. He put something round her shoulders. It was soft, but so heavy it felt as if it were lined with lead.

She exclaimed, feeling the weight of it. ‘What's it made of?'

‘Sable.' He saw her expression, held up his hand with an apologetic laugh. ‘I know what you're going to say. Don't be alarmed, just think of it as an antique. Which in a way it is, since it used to belong to my grandmother. A rather practical antique. You're going to need it, it's very cold on the water.'

He took her hand, brought it swiftly to his lips. ‘You look like a queen,' he said, still holding her hand. He drew her closer; kissed it again, palm upwards this time

‘I feel like a queen,' she said.

They looked at one another, smiling.

They set off. The waters of the Bosphorous were like silvered ink. Although there was little traffic at this time of the evening, the occasional small vessel passed them, shining like a firefly.

‘When did you get back?'

‘This afternoon.' He was still holding her hand. ‘Was it right to call you? Haddba said you were with someone …' He glanced round at her.

‘Haddba! I might have know she'd have had a hand in it,' Elizabeth laughed. ‘Actually, your text came at a very good moment,' she hesitated, ‘and yes I was with someone but—' She wondered what to say about Marius's sudden arrival.

‘It's all right, you don't have to explain.'

‘No, I'd like to. I hate to think what Haddba told you—'

She remembered with something like shame the way Marius had tried to kiss her, to take her upstairs to her room; and how close she had come to letting him, following behind him like a dog.

‘I wouldn't worry. Haddba is completely unshockable. She just thinks that he's no good for you, that's all.'

‘He isn't – wasn't,' she corrected herself, ‘although I don't know how on earth Haddba thinks she knows that. I've never so much as mentioned him to her.'

‘Haddba is a – how do you say it? – a
sorcière
. I've often said so.'

‘A sorceress?'

‘When it comes to affairs of the heart. I'm joking of course. But she has a kind of genius for these things – hard to explain.' He smiled at her. ‘She brought us together, after all.'

A feeling she could not quite describe came over her. A feeling of lightness, of clarity.

‘Is that what we are going to have: an affair of the heart?' Addressed to anyone else the words would have sounded stilted, coy almost. But not to him. Despite the heaviness and warmth of the sable-lined coat, she found that she was shivering, but not with cold this time.

‘Oh, I think we should,' he said.

They stood, as they had done before, side by side; very close, but not touching. Her desire for him was so strong she was almost fainting.

‘I think we already are, don't you?' He turned to look at her. ‘My beautiful Elizabeth.'

He had not said that they were going to the
yalı
, the wooden house on the Asian shore of the Bosphorous that he had showed her last time, but she knew that that was where they were heading. When
they arrived a man, a caretaker of some kind, was there to hand her out on to the little jetty and take charge of the boat. Behind the house the wind sighed, shivering the snow-laden trees. Elizabeth picked her way carefully across the icy ground, following Mehmet into a kind of antechamber. The house was lit up, warm and bright after the bitter night as though guests were expected, but apart from the manservant, who did not reappear again, there was nobody else around that Elizabeth could see.

‘Will you wait for me here? Just for a moment or two?' He kissed her on the mouth. ‘There's something I need to do.'

‘Yes, I'll wait for you,' she said, but neither of them moved.

He bent his head to kiss her again. She tasted him, smelt him, and a kind of sweetness pierced her whole body.

‘I won't be long.'

‘No.'

‘I promise.'

‘Really?'

‘Yes, really.'

He was still kissing her, not only her mouth, but her hair, her neck.

‘Are you sure?'

Her body was pressed up against his.

‘Yes, quite sure.' He ran his hand tenderly over her cheek.

‘Mehmet?'

‘Yes?' He was staring at her mouth.

‘Nothing …'

She closed her eyes, felt him trace the outline of her lips, felt him push his finger in between them, parting them with his finger.

‘Are you sure? You don't mind me bringing you here? I can wait, you know.' He looked at her in a way that made her heart skip a beat.

‘I'm sure. Go,' she said, pulling away at last. ‘I'll wait for you.'

Following his instructions, Elizabeth made her way up a staircase and found herself in a gallery, a long thin drawing room which ran the whole length of the house. In the centre, raised up on a platform, was an alcove that jutted out over the waterfront. Cushions covered in heavily brocaded velvets and silks had been arranged around three sides of the alcove in such a way that whoever sat there would have the sensation that they were floating just over the water's edge. Reclining in the centre of the furthest divan seat was a large black cat.

‘Well, hello puss.' Elizabeth let the sable-lined coat slide from her shoulders. She went over to the creature and sat down next to it, searching for the sweet spot beneath its jaw. The cat took no notice of her; lay with ostentatiously closed eyes. Only by a faint, reproachful movement in the very tip of its tail did she know it had registered her presence. Outside the window, on the European shore, the lights of the city shone. Elizabeth could see a small boat cruise by, its light shining against the inky blackness.

‘If I had this house I would never leave it,' she said, half to herself, half to the cat.

‘What would you never leave?' It was Mehmet returning.

‘I would never leave this house.'

‘Do you like it?'

‘Very, very much.'

‘I'm glad. The Ottomans built these wooden
yalis
as summer houses, because they were close to the cool of the water.' He came and sat beside her. ‘But there were many fires. Because they're made of wood the
yalis
were always burning down. People stopped using them, and many just rotted away. Now they're coming back into fashion again.'

Together they looked out at the city sparkling on the opposite shore. ‘It's beautiful in winter here, too, don't you think?'

‘Oh yes, wonderful.' Elizabeth replied.

There was a pause.

‘I see you've found Milosh.' He watched her stroking the cat.

‘Is that what she's called?'

There was another pause.

‘There's an angel walking across someone's grave.' She looked round him. ‘That's what we say when there's a silence like that.'

‘You are pensive?'

‘No … well, I suppose so,' she said, ‘it's just that I've had the strangest,
strangest
day. You can't imagine. And now this—'

She wondered, with a feeling of sudden misgiving, how many other women he had brought to this place, this place which seemed made for the act of seduction.

‘And now?'

‘And now, well, this seems like the strangest part of all.'

As if he could read what was on her mind he said, ‘I can see you have some questions. You can ask me anything, you know.'

‘I know I can,' she said. And she realised that, unlike Marius, she could.

He was pulling her towards him, kissing her neck.

‘I'd like to ask you how many women you've brought here,' she said, amazing herself with her own boldness. She looked round at the ravishing room. ‘But I'm not sure I want to know the answer.'

‘The truth is I have brought just one person here before,' he said. He loosened Elizabeth's hair so that it fell like a sheet of dark water over her shoulder.

‘Recently?'

‘No. That's all in the past.' He was taking off her shoes.

‘You mean it's over?'

‘The love affair is over, if that's what you mean.' He smiled at her. ‘Now she is married to someone else, but still my very great friend.'

‘Oh, I see,' Elizabeth said. She tried, and failed, to imagine what it might be like to be friends with Marius.

‘You sound surprised.'

‘No.' She watched as he unbuttoned her shirt, and then laid out the sable coat for them, the fur uppermost against the cushions.

‘Is that what we shall become,' she said lying down, naked now, watching him as he undressed, ‘very great friends?'

But I feel something more than friendship, she thought; what is it that I feel? – this feeling of skinlessness. Is it love? she thought, a moment of sudden dread.

‘Elizabeth, why are you thinking of the end, when we are just at the beginning?' He kissed the soft skin of her shoulder. ‘Let's be lovers first,' he laughed.

Elizabeth laughed too, and pulled herself on top of him, held his arms down over his head. And there it was again: a feeling of extraordinary lightness, of clarity. It occurred to her that she might be, quite simply, happy.

Looking down at him, marvelling, she said, ‘Yes, let's.'

Inside the Third Courtyard of the Topkapı Palace, Elizabeth waited outside the Director's office for her long-anticipated appointment to visit the palace archives.

‘Elizabeth Staveley?' A man in an immaculate brown suit and white shirt opened the door to her.

‘Yes.'

‘I am Ara Metin, one of the Director's assistants. Please, come in.'

Elizabeth followed him inside.

‘Have a seat, please.' The man indicated the chair on the other side of his desk. ‘I believe that you have requested permission to consult our archive?'

‘Yes, that's right.'

Elizabeth could see that he had her papers in front of him: her application form, the letter of recommendation from her supervisor, Dr Alis.

‘It says here that you are interested in the 1599 English mission during the time of our Sultan Mehmet III.' He cast his eye over the form. ‘You have also asked to see the organ that was given by the British merchants to the Sultan?'

‘Yes. That's correct.'

‘And this is for?' He looked benignly at her through his spectacles.

‘My thesis. My DPhil thesis.'

‘On trading missions to Constantinople?' he pressed her gently.

‘Yes.'

Why do I feel like a fraud? Elizabeth shifted uncomfortably on her chair. She remembered Dr Alis's advice: the important thing is to get your foot in the door; if you don't know what to ask for when trying to get access to an archive, just apply to see something – anything – that you know they must have.

‘Congratulations,' he gave her a courteous smile, ‘you will be a Doctor of Philosophy, then? Dr Staveley.'

‘Well, I've got a while to go yet, but one day I hope so.' Elizabeth searched around for something else to say. ‘Thank you so much for seeing me at such short notice.'

‘It says here that you have only a few days left in Istanbul, is that right?'

‘I'm going home for Christmas.'

‘In that case, we must give you our express service,' he smiled. ‘Especially since this is your second application to us, I believe? Your first was … let me see …' He shuffled back through the papers.

‘I was looking for any information regarding a young English woman,' Elizabeth explained. ‘Celia Lamprey. I believe she may have been a slave belonging to Sultan Mehmet – at around about the same time that the English mission arrived here.'

‘But you had no luck?'

‘No.'

‘Well, this is not surprising. Except in the case of the most senior women – the Sultan's mother, for example, or the occasional concubine or powerful harem official – practically no information has come down to us about them. Not even their names, which for the purposes of any records held here would have been different, in any case, from their birth name. Your young woman, Celia Lamprey, would never have been known as that, she would have been given an Ottoman name, probably before she even arrived. But you know this, I think?' Looking at her again over his spectacles he shook his head. ‘What is this Western obsession with harems?' she heard him say, half to himself. And then, brisk suddenly, as though the subject embarrassed him. ‘Now, let's see if we can be more helpful this time.'