An Evil Eye

131

Ten minutes later, Yashim heard a low whistle from the yard. He put his face to the bars.

“Yashim!”

He recognized the voice, even in a whisper. He thrust a hand through the bars and gripped a well-known hand.

“Incredible!” Palewski’s excited whisper cut through the night like steam escaping from an engine. “We’ll have to rethink the whole story!”

“Yes. It’s not Talfa-”

“Talfa?” Palewski dropped his hand. “I’m talking about the Genoese settlement, Yashim, prior to the Conquest. Those tunnels? Greater continuity than anyone realizes. Gibbon, von Hammer…” His whisper trailed off. After a moment he said: “If this gate is locked, how the devil do we get out?”

It took almost half an hour with ropes, and muffled curses, to bring Palewski and Marta over the wall.

She descended with solemn grace, holding her skirts tight.

“It would be better for you not to go back to the residency just yet,” Yashim explained as they made their way up the open lanes toward Galata Hill.

Twenty minutes later, when everyone had told their story, Preen looked at Yashim.

“You’ve been very quiet, my dear.” She turned to the others. “Yashim is thinking up a plan to capture Fevzi Pasha,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Bring the bastard to justice.”

Yashim shook his head. “I thought that. But no. My plan is-to send him to Egypt, with his daughter.”

Preen stiffened. “You’d do that for him-after everything?”

He caught her look: it chilled him.

“You said-you promised me-you’d seen through him, Yashim. And now-you work for him, like that!” She snapped her fingers.

“Do you remember, Preen, when I said there is always a gap, however tightly we try to fit the pieces together?”

“For mercy,” Preen sneered. “For a man who would give none!”

“It’s not for him. Not exactly.”

“Who, then?” Palewski said.

Marta smiled shyly. “He means his daughter, of course.”

Yashim cast her a grateful look. “I can’t play God, Preen. If we don’t move now, I’m afraid the little girl will die.”

Preen tossed her head. “She’s in the harem, you said. Safe-and secret. The safest place in Istanbul.”

Yashim slowly shook his head. “It’s secret-but it isn’t safe. Not safe, at all.”

“What do you propose, Yashim?” Palewski yawned. The night had been long.

“I propose, my friend, that you get some sleep. As for you, Kadri, I want you to find a caiquejee called Spyro, and bring him here.”