Part 10 (1/2)
Talfa opened her eyes.
”What's the matter now?”
The dresser let the pot slip from her fingers and brought her hand to her mouth.
Talfa's hand flew to her chin. ”What is it?”
”I-I don't know, hanum efendi. There was something in the pot.”
”In the pot?” A look of annoyance clouded the princess's face. ”Well, pick it up.”
The girl gingerly picked up the pot, and turned it so that Talfa could look inside.
She peered in, then dabbed at it with a finger.
Something black and long sprang out, and they both started. The dresser let the pot fall.
On the carpet between them lay the thick, ribbed tail of a rat.
Talfa's face slowly crumpled as she squeezed her eyes shut and opened her mouth. Then she screamed, and screamed, and screamed.
33.
THE boys' dormitory in a long, narrow room high up under the eaves contained twelve cots and a table with a washbasin. On a stand lay a copy of the Koran, transcribed by gifted boys over the years; Yas.h.i.+m thought he recognized his own hand in the pages, but he could not be sure. It was a long time ago.
The fire in the grate was cold.
A barred window at the end of the room looked out over the many-domed roof of the refectory. Beyond it, across a narrow lane, he could see the leaded dome of a small mosque.
”Took him from Anatolia,” the tutor said. ”He'd been living wild.”
”Wild?”
”In a cave, apparently. One of the clansmen found him. Sent him on.”
Yas.h.i.+m nodded. It wasn't unusual for boys to be sponsored to the school. No doubt one of the clan chiefs of Anatolia had recognized Kadri's talents and sent him to Istanbul in the hope that one day he would be in a position to repay the favor.
The tutor shrugged. ”Long time ago, Yas.h.i.+m efendi. For Kadri, I mean. He was only seven or eight-half a lifetime ago, in fact. Been in training ever since.”
”He left from here?”
The tutor made a gesture of bewilderment. ”Must be so. We do a roll call every night. Kadri was marked in.”
Yas.h.i.+m squatted in the fireplace and looked up the chimney. ”Maybe another boy answered for him?”
The tutor shook his head. ”Kadri took the roll himself. I could show you the register. The boys agree that Kadri was there when they turned in.”
”After the register, the doors are locked?” Yas.h.i.+m stood up, rubbing his hands. The chimney was narrow and capped with a cowl. ”And in the morning, someone beats the gong.”
The tutor nodded. ”Older boys bring tapers to the dormitories. That's when they found Kadri missing.”
”But he'd slept in his bed.”
”Yes.”
”And then?”
”The boys looked around, then came down to the mosque and told me what had happened. I came up and searched, too.”
”Let's go downstairs,” Yas.h.i.+m said.
It was a stone staircase, with a landing between the floors. Yas.h.i.+m stopped to contemplate the landing window, high in the wall. Then he moved on downstairs and into the courtyard, to study the dormitory block from the outside. It was just as he remembered, built in the spare cla.s.sical Ottoman style, with deeply inset windows and dressed stone walls.
Beyond these walls so much had changed in the years since Yas.h.i.+m was there. Laws had been changed, the Janissaries suppressed. Egypt, the ancient grain store of the empire, had slipped from the sultan's grasp under its charismatic Albanian overlord, Mehmet Ali Pasha; Russia had moved closer.
”Fazil!”
One of the boys coming out of the gymnasium broke away from his companions and salaamed.
”Fazil shares the dormitory with Kadri. Tell the efendi what happened this morning.”
Fazil gave his account. Kadri hadn't been in his bed when the gong went.
”Did you look under all the beds?” Yas.h.i.+m asked the boy again.
Fazil scratched one leg against the other and admitted that he couldn't be sure.
”How about your own bed?”
”I-I think so, efendi. Or one of the boys would have looked.”
”And the chimney?”
”I can't remember, efendi. Later, I looked for sure. I am sorry.”