Wu Ming - Altai

I knew her story; she was the daughter of a noble Venetian family, captured by Turkish corsairs.

“Fortunately for us,” Nasi went on, pointing at the palace, “she is locked up in her rooms, although that doesn’t mean she is cut off from the world. The hall of the Divan and the imperial harem are divided only by a small courtyard, and the head of the Black Eunuchs has intimated to me that Nurbanu sometimes goes and sits behind the grille that you saw, above the head of the Grand Vizier, and secretly listens in on the meetings of the Council.”

We sat in silence until the shores of the Bosphorus began to widen and the outlines of an archipelago appeared clearly beyond the prow, in the middle of the Propontis. Nasi ordered the steersman to turn back. That day seemed inspired by signs and clues that he alone perceived. He waited until we were back below the bailiff’s residence before he spoke again.

He said he could imagine how the ambassador communicated with the outside world. The expedient was a simple one. Barbaro complained of delicate health, and received frequent visits from the doctor to the Venetian community, one Solomon Ashkenazi.

“The Grand Vizier’s personal secretary?” I asked in amazement.

Nasi nodded. It was only a hypothesis, without any proof. No one could understand how Ashkenazi got the messages out, given that the janissaries searched him at the entrance and exit of the bailiff’s house. But certainly Sokollu was informed of the communications between the ambassador and Venice, and secretly served as their bondsman.

Now the picture was almost complete. All that was missing was me.

Me, the Venetian. The spy hunter.

If patience is a virtue, waiting is an art. I had learned it in my Venetian years, lying in wait for spies and conspirators. Staying in the same place for hours, beguiling the time without letting the time beguile me into lowering my guard, had been a crucial part of my job. Perhaps that was why I felt so much at my ease hidden in the shade of the poplars, not far from the villa of the bailiff Marcantonio Barbaro. The prisoner couldn’t have been having too bad a time in there. Seen from the land side, his residence looked even richer, surrounded by a well-tended garden, but above all well guarded, kept under constant surveillance by two orders of watchmen. Inside, I counted four armed men, servants of the bailiff. I imagined there might be a few more inside the house. The janissaries were stationed on the outer circle, by the doors. Grim faces and drooping mustaches, as the code of the Sultan’s chosen bodyguard decreed.

I spent my days studying every detail of the building from different angles. I examined the windows and the balconies, because I knew that sometimes guards communicate with mirrors or little colored flags. I also kept a close eye on the movements of the birds around the building, looking for messenger pigeons, but saw only swallows and crows.

Provisions arrived on a cart on the morning of the second day. Every basket, wineskin and bag was opened and examined before the servants brought it into the building. The janissaries were highly efficient sentinels. No one went in or out — with one sole exception.

It was not until the morning of the fifth day that I saw a sedan chair arrive, and out of it climbed the doctor I was waiting for. I remembered the thin outline of Ashkenazi from the Hanukkah dinner on the day of my arrival at Palazzo Belvedere. He greeted the two janissaries at the main entrance and allowed them to search his clothes before they let him in. They did so without hesitation or compunction, leaving him bareheaded and half naked in the cold of the early morning. Ashkenazi said nothing, got dressed again and crossed the threshold. He stayed in there for half an hour, and when he left, he resignedly submitted to the same procedure all over again. I narrowed my eyes, paying a great deal of attention to the movements of their hands: I had to be sure that Ashkenazi wasn’t actually using the janissaries as couriers.

The doctor climbed back into the sedan chair and was carried down the hill toward the heart of Galata. I watched after the vehicle for as long as I could, then let it go its own way.

What would Consigliere Nordio have thought if he had seen me at that moment, discovering the method by which the bailiff was able to evade surveillance? One of the first things that he, of all people, had taught me was that by choosing simple solutions you reduce risk and error. Sokollu must have been of the same school.

I had already ruled out the possibility that the medium for the message might be Ashkenazi’s prodigious memory. The Venetians would never have trusted the flatus vocis , and certainly not if the voice belonged to a Jew. They would certainly demand a letter written and sealed by the bailiff’s own hand.

A different detail had attracted my attention.

The janissaries had missed something.

His shoes.

Ashkenazi, as a privileged Jew, traveled in a sedan chair. Indispensable if you wanted to keep your babouches out of the mud and the puddles, without putting at risk their precious contents. I left my post and set off rapidly toward Palazzo Belvedere. I had just demonstrated to myself that I was still a good hunter.

Two dark-skinned boys were washing their arms in the fountain. They looked like Asians from the East Indies and were so similar that they could have been twins. When one of them released a pin and let his hair fall to his shoulders, I was startled to realize that “he” was a woman. Her breasts were hardly visible under her masculine clothes.

A little way off, a Muslim was finishing his prayers. His robes, his amber skin, his reddish beard all suggested that he was an Arab. He got to his feet and rolled up the carpet on which he had been praying. He also picked up a scimitar. He saw me and nodded his head — a cautious and barely perceptible greeting.

Coming back from the day of investigations and surveillance, I certainly hadn’t expected an encounter like this. The last refugees had returned to their homes, and the drawing room at Palazzo Belvedere was almost always empty.

Last of all, I saw the old man. He was standing beneath the portrait of Donna Gracia and staring at it in silence. The big painting loomed over him. I, too, had often contemplated that picture; I had admired its strength. The Senyora ’s black eyes looked like lunar eclipses. Her arched eyebrows were bridges hanging over precipices so high, it took the breath away. Her sharp nose was the prow of a ship.

The old man was dressed in the Moorish manner, the darkness of his tunic and turban broken by his white beard. I studied him from a distance, at the edge of the hall. It was impossible to tell how old he was, but his body was still straight, in spite of the stick that he held parallel to his leg.

At that moment a door opened and a servant came rushing into the room. He barely deigned to glance at the other foreigners, but headed straight for the old man. When he was close to him, he slowed his step as if he didn’t want to frighten him. Or perhaps he was the one who was scared.

“Don Yossef is at the Seraglio, Effendi. A guest of the Sultan,” he said in Turkish, his voice full of bitterness. “We have managed to warn him, but you will understand that it’s difficult for him to be here before evening.”

“Duarte Gomez?” asked the old man.

“You mean. . Don David? He was with Don Yossef.”

The old man spoke the name of Donna Reyna, and it was like a revelation to the other man.

“Yes, of course, Effendi, right away, Effendi.” He nodded his agreement and flew toward the stairs. The old man stared at the painting again. Less than a minute must have passed when his voice broke the silence.