Jason Goodwin - The Bellini card

“You only think so? Why so uncertain now, Yashim lala?”

“There’s no evidence either way. But I think it was an accident because it was so ill omened. For you.”

“For me?”

Yashim sighed. “You were the Duke of Naxos, Resid.”

“And you think the omens were proved?” Resid gave a tight little laugh. “It’s not over yet, Yashim lala. Go on.”

Yashim shrugged. “Why bother? You know as well as I do that you were afraid. You were afraid that if the contessa started to negotiate with the sultan, the truth would come out. So you decided to kill her, and everyone else associated with that game of cards.”

Resid gave a strange smile. “So, the contessa is dead. Thank you for that, Yashim.”

Yashim cocked his head to one side. “No, Resid. She didn’t die, because I stopped the killer.”

“I see.” Resid blinked. “The indefatigable Yashim.”

“No, no. I’m very tired, Resid.”

Resid leaned forward. He brought his sweating face to within a few inches of Yashim’s.

“It’s a new regime, Yashim lala,” he hissed. “New men. The sultan’s young, like me-but I have experience he needs. A new regime. And, Yashim, just between ourselves, I control it.”

Yashim said nothing.

“Fetch me the letter,” Resid burst out. “Fetch it and save your skin. Or go away and die, if you prefer.” He leaned back against the marble wall. “Barbieri died. So did Eletro, and Boschini. Maybe the contessa’s next, after all. And do you know? Nobody cares.”

Yashim stood up. “You’re right, of course. It’s only Pappendorf who’ll be surprised. I suppose the Austrian ambassador thought you were delivering him the sultan.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ruggerio was an informer. He told the Austrians that the Duke of Naxos was Abdulmecid, so Pappendorf came to you, didn’t he? With a threat to expose the sultan-and an offer of cooperation. He expected you to manage it, I suppose. Blackmail at a high level. You went along with it, of course, to avoid suspicion falling on you. You and the Austrians, together, could eradicate the evidence against the Duke of Naxos. No one would ever know he’d been to Venice at all. The Austrians would help by giving your assassin a free hand, but in return they expected to own the sultan. How surprised they’ll be to discover that all they own is you.”

“I control affairs,” Resid said grimly.

“For how long, Resid?” Yashim asked. “Viziers come and go, don’t they? Sometimes they go gracefully, with blessings, to retirement and old age. But you’re too young to retire safely. You’d live too long and know too much.”

“I control affairs.” His voice shook.

“The Austrians might not think so, Resid. They bought a sultan. You have delivered-who? A man who bungles a simple killing even when everyone’s straining to look the other way.”

Yashim got to his knees. His face was set. “The palace is a little world,” he said. “You wouldn’t be the first vizier to forget that the people, too, have a voice. I saw them, Resid, when they gathered around the great tree. It wouldn’t take much, I think, when the people learn that you sold your sultan’s name to protect your own.”

Resid was staring at him, his mouth open.

“The trouble with advisers is that they get things wrong. Even Joseph Nasi, I recall, got it wrong from time to time. The good thing about them is that they’re dispensable.

“You, Resid, promised everyone your loyalty and your good faith. The people, with your pieties. The sultan, with loyalty. The Austrians, with a leash on the sultan. There’s a diagram we both know, where the background changes as you move. But com’era, dov’era: you’ve disappointed even me.”

A memory flashed into Yashim’s mind, something Carla had said. “When it’s all gone, Resid, honor is all we have left.”

He stood up and walked out without looking back.

Yashim returned to his apartment. Elvan had brought the dishes back from the baker’s.

He peeled and chopped the cucumbers. He sprinkled them with salt, crushed two cloves of garlic, chopped them fine, and put them in a bowl with some yogurt. After a while he squeezed the water from the cucumbers and mixed them into the yogurt.

Then he washed his hands and sat silently on his divan, looking out across the rooftops of Istanbul.

“I brought raki,” Palewski said, taking the bottle from his bag. “I wanted to feel properly home.”

Yashim fetched two painted glasses and a jug of water. He set some olives on the table. He put some of the artichokes on a dish, with the aubergines, sliced. He cut the bread and left it on the board, which he put on the table with the yogurt.

Palewski poured an inch of raki into each glass and turned it milky with the water.

He handed one to Yashim. “Prosit! ”

When they had drunk, he sat tossing an olive in his hand and looking expectantly at Yashim.

Yashim shook his head. “How’s Marta?”

“I’ll tell you about Marta later,” Palewski said. “I want to know if you’ve heard anything from Resid.”

Yashim lifted an artichoke to his mouth. It tasted very good.

“Yashim.”

“I saw him this afternoon, at the hammam.”

“So he doesn’t know about Venice, then?”

“He knew when I told him.”

Palewski stared. “That’s a death warrant. For you and the contessa, too. Who’s to say he wasn’t just doing his duty, protecting the sultan’s honor?”

Yashim took a sip of raki. “Me,” he said. “And he knew it, too.”

Palewski frowned. “You against him?”

Yashim wiped his hands on a napkin and laid it on the table. “Remember the Duke of Naxos? Carla said that the title would have reverted to the sultan on Joseph Nasi’s death.”

“Which is why Abdulmecid used it.”

“No, Palewski. Abdulmecid wasn’t the sultan then. He was only the crown prince.”

“Hairsplitting, Yashim.”

“Maybe. But fakery is endemic in Venice,” Yashim said. “How do we know that the Duke of Naxos who came to Venice in Carnivale really was the sultan?”

Palewski gave an impatient shrug. “Carla recognized him, Yashim. And then-the Tatar. The murders. Covering up a youthful indiscretion.”

“An indiscretion, yes,” Yashim echoed. “It was committed by a man nobody really knew. He wore a mask and called himself the Duke of Naxos. It hurt me to think that the sultan could have gone drinking and gambling in Venice, Palewski.” He bit his lip. “There’s something else. I saw the valide today. Abdulmecid has set her up in the Baghdad Kiosk.”

“Good for him.”

Yashim nodded. “She mentioned how innocent he was of life, too. But that’s not it. Good for him, you say? Yes. Abdulmecid might kick over the traces once in his life, but he was brought up well. An Ottoman gentleman, however young, does not pay visits in the character of an enemy. And Nasi was an implacable enemy of Venice.”

Palewski was still. “You’re right, Yashim. I hadn’t thought of that. Whatever sultans have been in their time, they have always had, what? Form. Even Mahmut, poor fellow. He was a great bear, but you couldn’t fault his manners.”

He speared an artichoke. “But if the sultan wasn’t masquerading as the Duke of Naxos, who was?”

“Resid Pasha.”

Palewski choked, so Yashim got up to fetch him another glass of water.

“That, of course, changes everything,” Palewski spluttered.

“Everything? No. The pattern doesn’t change. Carla thought she recognized the duke. And Ruggerio was watching-mistakenly-the professional guide, whose gift was to assess the people he met. I think something in the way Carla behaved alerted him, too.”