Part 42 (1/2)

He let the knife drop.

He could not remember if he had killed the pasha or not. He thought, after all his trouble, that he would feel something. Elation, or satisfaction. Even disappointment. Instead, he felt only very tired.

152.

”A long time ago, when I was a boy, there was a man in the village who had the evil eye. He was not a bad man, Yas.h.i.+m. He was a good man. But bad luck attended him, everywhere. Cattle became sick when he looked them over. Women dropped things as he went by.” Husrev shrugged. ”He stopped going to the church, because twice his presence made an icon fall. He carried bad luck with him. But you-you are lucky.”

Yas.h.i.+m rubbed his chin and contemplated the grand vizier.

”Perhaps it's you who has the luck, Husrev Pasha,” he said. He had expected to find the vizier alone. Instead, he had heard the peal of the bell, and had hurled himself upon the deranged man. Now that the a.s.sa.s.sin had been taken away, the room was still. Husrev Pasha, he noticed, remained seated on the divan, just as he had been when the killer drew his knife.

”Tulin is dead,” Yas.h.i.+m said.

The heavy lids sank. ”Tulin is dead,” Husrev repeated. He worked his jaw. ”But I am the grand vizier.”

The silence hissed in Yas.h.i.+m's ears.

”Tell me, Yas.h.i.+m. In the harem is a little girl-”

”Roxelana.”

”She is-well?”

”She is well. But not in the harem anymore.”

”Not?”

”Roxelana is on her way to Egypt.”

Husrev's eyes were the color of old parchment.

”You will be making a report?”

”No. No, I will not be making a report. You have enough paper as it is.”

Something approaching a smile moved on the pasha's lips.

”You are good, Yas.h.i.+m efendi. Thank you.”

153.

PREEN took Kadri's chin in her hand.

”What was it, darling? Theater life too dull?”

Kadri smiled, and ducked away. ”Too exciting, maybe.”

”I was about to teach you to juggle,” Preen said, with mock reproach. ”Juggling's another whole two kurus a week.”

”I'm going to try it on my own,” Kadri said. ”Will you give me a job when I'm finished at school?”

Preen waved a hand. ”Oh, you'll be on your way by then. Grand vizier by thirty.”

They both glanced at Yas.h.i.+m, who stood at a discreet distance pretending to read a playbill tacked to the wall, his hands clasped behind his back.

”Not my idea,” he announced, without turning. ”The Great Kadri! The India Rubber Man!” He swept his hand across the playbill. ”Dropped from a roof! Fired from a cannon! It's safer than politics,” he added.

As they were leaving, he took Preen by the hand.

”That party,” he said. ”Where you saw Fevzi Pasha-and the girl.”

”Hmm?”

”Husrev Pasha wasn't there, too, by any chance?”

Preen frowned. ”As a matter of fact-why do you ask?”

”I just wonder-I don't know. Perhaps we all had Fevzi Pasha slightly wrong.”

”Wrong? The man's a monster, Yas.h.i.+m.”

”Of course. Of course. I know that.”