An Evil Eye

142

Yashim closed his eyes, and closed his mind: he was a machine, an automaton, back, forward, back. His lungs were ready to burst. Back again!

His mind was fixed on the old jetty beneath the seraglio gardens. Once, in former years, it would have provided him with an instant sanctuary: two Janissaries at the gate, a couple of hefty bostancis to guard the imperial caique. These days the jetty was likely to be deserted; the gate sealed. It was many years since the valide had expressed a wish to go scudding across the Bosphorus.

And the water gate was now his only hope.

His pursuers were almost on him. Two caiques running almost side by side, twenty yards behind him. He could see the muscles bulging in the rowers’ necks. He glanced back, over his shoulder.

It would never work. He still had two, three hundred yards to go.

He grunted, and dragged the sculls through the water. They had to board him first, of course. Yashim set his mind to the coming fight when something quite unexpected occurred.

The caique nearest to him gave a sudden lurch, and the rower was almost hurled overboard; at almost the same moment the second caique swung around with such force that spray flew into the air. It was as if some unseen hand had reached out from the depths and taken both caiques in its iron grip.

As they bobbed and dipped, Yashim could hear shouts of anger, or surprise. One of the caiquejees stood up and appeared to be driving his oar into the water.

Yashim pulled hard, not letting up, almost superstitiously eager to get away from the commotion that had overtaken his pursuers.

He cleared another hundred yards. Over the icy waters he could hear the shouts of the caiquejees. One of them, indeed, seemed to have regained his stroke: but the distance was on Yashim’s side.

He turned his head and saw a lamp at the landing stage, with a knot of men around it.

His heart sank.

They’d beaten him to it.

And then, with a second glance, he saw something else: the bobbing prow of an imperial caique, with its boxlike pavilion, tethered to the stage like a thoroughbred in its stable.

He pulled up. A man bent down to gather in the painter, and Yashim half crawled from the pitching craft onto the stage.

“On the sultan’s service,” he gasped. “Yashim, for the valide.”