Jason Goodwin - The snake stone

Palewski pulled a face. “A society of doctors?”

“Millingen was at Missilonghi for the cause, wasn’t he? We know Stephanitzes was, and he was the only Greek among them. Bruno worked for Byron: he followed the poet. Meyer edited the Chronica Hellenica. Perhaps he believed in the Great Idea, or perhaps he simply hoped for reward when the kingdom established itself.”

“That fits,” Palewski said. “Damn it, Yashim. English doctors don’t go around murdering people like that.”

“I couldn’t say,” Yashim remarked. “But Lefevre also visited another man before he was killed. Mavrogordato.”

“That’s it!” Palewski slapped his thigh. “The Greek banker, ship-owner, whatever. He knew where to find Lefevre that night-you’d booked him a passage on one of his ships. These bankers are doing quite all right, don’t want to rock the boat. Lefevre comes in, babbling about the relics, and Mavrogordato panics. He uses his wealth and influence to have the whole thing discreetly taken care of.”

Yashim sighed. “I wouldn’t call any of those murders discreet. If Mavrogordato wanted Lefevre killed, why did his wife call me in to dig around? Mavrogordato doesn’t sneeze without his wife’s permission. He wouldn’t organize a string of murders on his own. She might. But then she wouldn’t have called me in.”

“Confound it, Yash. Why in the name of God did she call you in?”

“Exactly. Why was she so interested in Lefevre?” Yashim put his fingertips together. “Something about him confused her.”

“Confused her?”

“I don’t think that Lefevre came babbling to her husband about relics. Mavrogordato could have told her if he had. There was something about Lefevre that she wanted to know-something Mavrogordato couldn’t tell her. Not because he wouldn’t-he’d tell her everything he knew. No secrets.”

“Out with it, Yashim.”

Yashim smiled. “I don’t have the answer, my friend. At least, not yet.”

“But you have an idea?”

Yashim nodded thoughtfully. “Yes. Yes, I do have an idea.”

Compston gave a huge snort and rolled sideways off his chair, onto the floor.

He sat up blearily, rubbing his head.

“I–I wasn’t asleep,” he mumbled automatically.

The valide leans forward. Some things, she says to herself, do not change: they must not. I did not believe it, when I was young. I fought the old women: I scandalized them. But I see it clearly now: this is my role.

She watches for a deviation. She can remember her last visit; she compares it with this.

Now he drinks the pure water from the cup, and now he dips his bread in a plate of salt, to show his brotherhood.

The watermen cross their arms flat against their chests.

They bow to the new recruit. There are spots of color on his cheeks.

The sou naziry, the chief of the watermen’s guild, raises his hands. “Water is life.”

“Water is life,” the new recruit answers in a firm voice.

“It is the blessing of the spirit.”

“And the spirit is with God,” he answers.

“Be He blessed, the Merciful, the Creator.”

“And may His blessings fall upon us, as the rain.”

The sou naziry steps forward and places his hands on the other man’s shoulders. He kisses him three times.

The valide almost smiles: it reminds her of gentlemen on Martinique.

She glances around, to share her smile with Yashim.

But Yashim isn’t there.

The valide frowned. Minutes had gone by. Prayers concluded, the watermen were beginning to file out into the courtyard through the great doors, under the watchful eye of the sou naziry. In a few moments he would come and present his salaams to the purdah screen. It was really too much! Where was Yashim?

She looked around, just in time to see him emerge from a tiny doorway between two of the great pilasters of the old church. The screen, she observed with relief, concealed him from the watermen. He was brushing his knees, which were covered in old lime, and the hem of his cloak seemed to be wet.

He gave her the blandest of smiles and bowed.

The valide frowned. “Where have you been, scelerat!” she hissed.

Yashim put out his hands. “I saw a door, I went through…I have never been here before.”

The shadow of the sou naziry fell across the screen.

“Valide! Your fragrant presence here this day brings much honor upon us. It shall be known that the company of the sou yolci was not forgotten, by your grace.”

The valide’s face softened at a stroke. “You are most kind, naziry. I do not forget that of all the treasures of Istanbul, that which you guard is the most precious to the people.”

“Valide, you speak the truth. Is it not written that of all living things water is the vital principle?”

“It is written,” the valide replied. Yashim repressed a smile: he doubted, in his heart, whether the valide really knew. “I have a servant, naziry.”

“Yes, Valide?” The sou naziry sounded faintly puzzled.

“Yashim, he is called. A lala. He is an honest man, and desires to talk with you.” She waved Yashim forward, and her bangles clinked.

Yashim stepped out from behind the screen and bowed. The naziry gave a curt nod and then raised his hands.

“You will forgive me, Valide. I have no time for the lala now,” he said. “For two days, I must inspect the bents. On my return…”

He bowed before the screen. The valide made no sound.

Yashim placed the vegetables in his basket and took the money from his purse.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah-and no offense, efendi! But this coin’s light-look, five piastres more, and there’s the deal.” The brother hopped from foot to foot, one hand outstretched, glancing up and down the road. “I’m coming, hanum! Five piastres, efendi.”

Yashim felt a surge of irritation as he counted out the tiny coins.

When he got back to the apartment he was not surprised to find Amelie on the divan, reading a book.

“I hoped you’d come back,” she said.

“You prepared the stove.”

“If you needed it…”

“Yes. I’ll make pilaf,” he said. “Don’t move. Just read your book.”

He stripped two onions from their hulls, chopped them fine, and dropped them with a handful of pine nuts into a pan of olive oil, which he set on the coals. He crushed two cloves of garlic and brushed off their skins with the knife, then chopped them roughly and added them to the onion with the flat of the blade. He drizzled two handfuls of rice from the crock into the pan and stirred it when the rice began to stick. After a few minutes the rice was becoming clear, so he pulled the pan from the coals and looked into the stockpot, which was starting to steam. He let it rise to the boil.

Amelie had been watching him.

“Max never liked to cook,” she said. “He didn’t have a sense of taste. Perhaps, you know, that’s why he never liked to kiss.”

Yashim put the rice back on the heat and ladled out some stock.

“It certainly explains something,” he muttered. When she asked what he meant, he told her about the dolma he’d given her husband.

Amelie laughed. “You chose the wrong Frenchman.”

The rice was drying out. Yashim put a few more ladlefuls of stock into the pan and stirred it in.

“I think he was a Swiss,” he said carefully.

Amelie was silent for a while. Yashim added salt, pepper, and a pinch of cinnamon to the rice, and covered it with a domed lid. “Did he tell you about his time in Greece?” he asked.

“Oh yes. He saw the Parthenon, and Epidaurus in the Peloponnese. He said there was so much more waiting to be unearthed-and thank God Napoleon had invaded Egypt, not Greece!”