Part 16 (1/2)

”YOU will have coffee?”

”As you wish, my pasha.”

The grand vizier clapped his fingers together. ”Bring coffee, Jehan.” He leaned back against the cus.h.i.+ons and pa.s.sed his hand over his eyes. ”You have something you wish to report?”

”Yes, my pasha. The Russian who died-”

”Look, Yas.h.i.+m. Accounts.” Husrev lifted a hand and patted a heap of papers at his side. ”Pet.i.tions. New appointments.” He leafed through the heap. ”A report from Syria. News about the Russians. Some news from the Russians, too-they wish to complain. Here-an amba.s.sador presents his credentials. Sometimes I think we love reports too much,” he added, letting the pile fall.

The servant entered with a tray suspended on three chains, and presented Yas.h.i.+m with a little cup.

”It is strange, Yas.h.i.+m. People believe this empire grew great because we Ottomans knew how to fight. Our gazi warriors, burning with zeal to subjugate the infidels. The horizons boundless under the hoofs of our steeds. Bright steel. Janissaries in formation.”

His lids drooped, his finger tapped the pile of papers. ”But what made the empire work was this. And this,” he added, touching his forehead. ”We were a shepherd race, Yas.h.i.+m. Nomads. Planning a route. Sorting the flocks. Pitching and striking camp, never forgetting a single cord or a sc.r.a.p of news. We made an empire because we were fast, and fought well: but we held it because we were organizers, Yas.h.i.+m. Because of this.”

He hefted the pile again. ”I observe the arrival of some paper or another. Then I pa.s.s it on. I am a shepherd of infinite doc.u.ments.”

He looked sadly at Yas.h.i.+m. ”You have been back to Chalki.”

”Yes, my pasha. I have been back.”

”To the monastery?”

”Not the monastery. Neither the abbot nor his monks appear to have been involved in the man's death. The impure water made them ill, and they readily told us what they had found. The tattoo, the brand, frightened them, that's all. If they had killed him, they would have concealed his body somewhere else.”

”And we would never have known?”

”Possibly. Probably. There isn't much else on Chalki. A small brigade of guards, the governor, Greek fishermen.” Yas.h.i.+m paused, half hoping the vizier might interject. ”The Russian had been dead for several weeks,” he added.

Husrev Pasha shook his head. ”So?”

”Three weeks ago,” Yas.h.i.+m said slowly, ”the fleet set out to patrol the Cyclades.”

Husrev grunted. ”The Cyclades was a blind, as it happens. The Kapudan pasha was given secret orders to cruise off Alexandria. The sultan decided this before he died.”

”A show of force?”

”My predecessor believed it could be useful.” He s.h.i.+fted his weight on the divan. ”However-the fleet sailed. And Chalki? I fail to see the connection, Yas.h.i.+m.”

”There is nothing on the island for a Russian agent, except-”Yas.h.i.+m swallowed. ”The Kapudan pasha left with the fleet. Fevzi Ahmet Pasha lives on Chalki.”

The grand vizier did not blink. ”The Kapudan pasha,” he repeated.

Yas.h.i.+m bit his lip. ”This afternoon, Husrev Pasha, I went back to speak to his people.”

”His women? About the Russian?” Husrev's tone was a mixture of disapproval and surprise.

”Women notice everything, Husrev Pasha.”

”That was not my point.”

Yas.h.i.+m understood what Husrev meant: a man's harem was sacrosanct. ”I can talk to women,” he said softly.

Husrev flicked his fingers in a gesture of disdain. He would believe that a woman's testimony was worth half that of a man, as sharia law dictated; but Yas.h.i.+m had dealt too often with women to think like the grand vizier.

”In the end, it was not necessary. His harem was empty. Fevzi Pasha has no women.”

Husrev Pasha's eyebrows rose. ”His household?”

Yas.h.i.+m had considered this. ”Apart from a couple of gardeners, who are paid for their time, he seems to maintain no household. He eats from naval stores. I imagine he gets his people from the same place-the navy.”

Husrev Pasha thrust out his jaw. It was almost unthinkable for a man of rank, with all his largesse, not to seek to bestow it upon the women and the menials who formed his household; maintaining a large retinue was itself a sign of rank. It was, in a more subtle sense, a moral expectation.

The Ottomans were not a nation. Turkish, Greek, Bosnian, Serb-they formed a caste; almost a family. Just as the sultan, as head of the family, maintained his pashas and his odalisques, so the Ottomans maintained their retinues in turn. It was the weave that held the fabric of Ottoman society together, and it was observed to the letter-even when a great man found himself displaced, out of favor, unemployed, his largesse flowed; perhaps all the more so, then.

Husrev Pasha laid his fingertips on the pile of papers and peered at them, tapping them slowly.

”A shepherd of doc.u.ments,” he muttered.

”My pasha?”

”When I was a boy, Yas.h.i.+m,” he growled in his deep, slow voice, ”I tended sheep. Now I watch the reports come in. I worry about the reports, sometimes, but there is so little that I can do. Revenues down? Trouble between peoples?” He pulled a face. ”What of it? Every year the same thing. Like sheep into the fold.” He raised a finger. ”Only the missing one makes all the trouble.”

He cast a thoughtful glance at Yas.h.i.+m.

”The Kapudan pasha has missed a report.”

Yas.h.i.+m said nothing. He sensed that the old vizier was really thinking aloud. His lips barely moved above the low, disarming rumble of his voice.

”What of that? Eh?” Husrev turned his thumbs outward. ”What do I know of winds, and storms, and the sea? I am an old Bosniac, Yas.h.i.+m.”

The papers, Yas.h.i.+m thought. I must tell him about the packet that was lost.

The grand vizier pulled at his lip and considered Yas.h.i.+m.

”You knew Fevzi Pasha well?”

”I knew Fevzi Ahmet Pasha before he became a commander. Before he received horsetails.”

”Three horsetails.” Horsetails, carried on a lance, were the mark of rank in the Ottoman Empire, and it was a sign of the old Ottoman respect for the sea that the Kapudan pasha had as many horsetails as the grand vizier. Land commanders had only two. ”He receives many honors. The late sultan, G.o.d's mercy on his soul, was pleased to advance him very high.”

”He is the Kapudan pasha,”Yas.h.i.+m said, more evenly. ”I have not seen him for ... ten years.”