An Evil Eye

139

He heard pounding footsteps behind him, and glanced back.

One of Fevzi’s caiquejees was vaulting the steps three at a time.

At the bottom of the stairs Yashim skidded out onto the icy thoroughfare. The caiquejee behind him gave a piercing whistle, and suddenly the roadway ahead was full of men, bare-fisted and bowlegged, stringing themselves out across the way that led to the bridge.

Their caiques rocked unattended at the stage.

Without a second glance, Yashim dashed to the stage and flipped the painter on the leading caique. He snatched up an oar and drove it against the wooden jetty. With a heave he shot the fragile craft out into the Golden Horn.

The caique gave a lurch. Water splashed over the gunwale, and Yashim very nearly overbalanced: his arms flailed and he sat down abruptly in the stern. He fitted the oars to the rowlocks, and pulled-almost tumbling over again as the fine-keeled caique, improbably light, began to twist through the water. He drew it in line with the central arch of the bridge, dipping his oars too deep; at the next stroke his blades scudded over the surface like lifting teal.

But he had it now: two firm bites of the blades, and the caique was skimming toward the bridge.

He glanced up. Some of the caiquejees were racing to the bridge, others piling into caiques waiting at the stage. One, two, then three shot forward, and slipped into his wake.

Yashim battled against the nervous movements of the boat. The shallow gunwale dipped and the caique shipped water again. With an effort he steadied his stroke, forcing himself to slow down. He glanced up: the caiquejees were gaining on him now.

As he slid into the shadow of the bridge he began drawing firmly to the right, zigzagging so that the men above would misjudge the point where he emerged. As he shot out on the other side he looked up-his maneuver had not been wasted. A man on the bridge dashed to catch up with him, and seemed ready to jump; but it was too late. Yashim had cleared the bridge by a boat’s length.

He leaned to the oars, and felt the current of the Bosphorus take him as he moved out of the Golden Horn. It was sweeping him slowly toward the opposite shore, toward Seraglio Point, where the very tip of Istanbul jutted into the strait, and he bent with it, willing it to whirl him toward the little jetty that stuck out beneath the walls of the seraglio.

For a few moments, with the help of the current, he left his pursuers trailing; but once they emerged into the stream they began to advance rapidly. One hundred and fifty yards. One hundred and twenty. One hundred.

One of the pursuing caiques began to pull in toward the shore. There were riptides and eddies all along the shores of the Bosphorus, and no doubt the caiquejee knew exactly where to find one that would speed his pursuit.

Yashim could only keep rowing, grimly, back cracking, hands raw against the wooden sculls.