Tears of Pearl

Chapter 18

“I need your absolute candor, Benjamin,” I said, once again sitting across from him in Ali’s restaurant near the Spice Bazaar, this time hearty plates of skender kebabs in front of us. I swirled a bite of chicken in thick yogurt sauce as I spoke. “The complications of your situation have become more clear to me, and I want to help you. I understand how dreadful all this is, particularly after learning what I have since Bezime’s death. She had the letters.”

“What letters?” Every inch of his body sagged.

“The ones you wrote. The love letters.”

“No. It’s not possible.”

“She raised Ceyden. They were in close contact. Perhaps she gave them to her for safekeeping,” I said.

“There is no proof of any of this. None.” He ripped off a piece of bread and slogged it, all false nonchalance, through the sauce on his plate.

“But you don’t deny it?” I asked. “There’s no need to protect her anymore, Benjamin.”

“I never—”

“You did not know who she was. How could you ever have suspected the truth?”

“The truth? What do you know about the truth?”

“No one can fault you,” I said. “But it’s critical now that we press forward and find the person responsible for her death. Jemal delivered the letters for you, did he not?”

He closed his eyes. “Yes.”

“And you met him when the boat capsized?”

“Yes.” His rough voice trembled.

“How did you persuade him—”

“I bribed him, Lady Emily. I paid dearly for it—not only in money, let me assure you. My conscience has suff ered no small amount.”

“All that jewelry. Was it to finance your escape?”

“It would have helped.”

“I need you to help me to better understand what was going on. Everyone says—forgive me if this is cruel—that Ceyden was desperate to earn the sultan’s favor. There are rumblings of political unrest, rumors that Murat is planning a coup. Was Ceyden attempting to get close to him to forward some sort of plot? Or was she merely doing whatever she could to cover her true intentions? To ensure that no one would suspect her of plotting to flee the harem?”

“I don’t know anything about politics,” he said.

“Do you know how she got the jewelry?”

“Ceyden?” he asked. “She stole it.”

“I’m sorry. I know this is painful. The fact that she’s your sister—”

He stared at me, eyes steady but lacking focus. “You have no idea.”

“We will find justice.”

“I don’t see the point. All I want is to go as far away from here as I can.”

“Are you still planning to leave?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t abandon my father, can I?”

“He doesn’t seem well.”

“He isn’t, and I don’t see him getting better unless we remove ourselves from Constantinople. There’s nothing left for him here but more misery.”

“You don’t think he’ll be reinstated at the embassy?” I asked.

“Have you spoken to him lately? He’s barely coherent and can hardly keep on his feet. He’s coming completely apart.”

“Where would you go? Italy?”

“Italy?” His eyebrows shot to his hairline. “No. Wouldn’t want to go there. France, maybe. But my father belongs in England.”

“I thought—” I stopped, going over the conversation we’d had on our previous visit to Ali’s, certain he had told me he’d taken a position on a dig in Italy. We’d discussed his interest in all things Roman. “France. Yes. I have a dear friend in Paris—I should put you in touch with her.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I would appreciate that. But not quite yet. I don’t want to alarm him. It’s not going to be easy to persuade him to leave, especially after he buried my sister here. Better that I have everything arranged and present it as a fait accompli.”

“How long do you think that will take?” I asked.

His expression changed, his eyes lightening, the color returning to his face—but there was a hint of effort in it, a strain in his features, as if he were pushing too hard. “No hurry, I suppose. Much though I’d like to go at once, I’d be sure to regret not setting everything up carefully. Are you still hungry? Ali’s baklava is incomparable.”

Benjamin had not exaggerated about the baklava, and I so indulged myself that I was unable to down even a single cup of tea when I met Margaret on the terrace at Misseri’s that afternoon.

“I do wish I could meet the sultan,” Margaret said, slathering butter on a scone. “The master of the seraglio. A figure who has fueled the romantic dreams of untold Western gentlemen for thousands of years.”

“Well. Not Abdül Hamit himself,” I said. “He can’t be more than fifty or so.”

“You know perfectly well what I mean.”

“I do. I just wish he were willing to fuel the romantic—or, rather, religious—dreams of one of his concubines.”

“But Roxelana refuses to marry, correct?”

“Yes. She wants us to help her escape.”

“Is such a thing possible?” Margaret asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “If it is, it’s full of risk. She can’t walk out of the palace—we’d have to bribe guards who most likely would turn on us.”

“What about helping her slip away when she’s away from the palace? I saw a group of concubines picnicking along the Golden Horn,” Margaret said.

“How many guards were with them?” I asked.

“More than I could count.”

“Colin would not like any of this,” I said. “And it would be difficult, to say the least. If she were to go on an excursion and in some legitimate way be separated from the group—I don’t know how—if she could get out of the building—”

“She could climb out a window,” Margaret said.

“And change into a common dress and common veil,” I said. “But as soon as the guards realized she was gone, they would tear the city apart looking for her.”

“And she would be caught.”

My mind was zooming. “Which is why,” I said, grinning, “she would walk, slowly, to the nearest tea shop and sit there, unfazed by any commotion, reading a novel. They’d never notice her.”

“You’re brilliant, you know,” Margaret said. “We have to find a way to do it.”

“But this sort of thing simply cannot be organized by someone with ties to our government—and my decision to work with Colin has put you firmly in that camp.” I frowned. “I don’t need a diplomatic incident during my first assignment.”

“Which is why we would have to be extremely careful.”

“You’re a terrible influence.”

“The worst. But it would be possible to pull it off—and think of the accomplishment, Emily—to free a woman enslaved to satisfy the base needs of a man who treats her with no honor.”

“The risk is enormous. What if they executed her if she was caught? And what would happen to Colin? And us?”

“I do wish there were a simpler way,” Margaret said. “She’s being stubborn. You could satisfy your obligation to both her and the Crown if you were able to arrange a suitable marriage. It would be easy enough for her to leave that situation on her own—even if all she did was demand a divorce, which I’m told is not unheard of here.”

“I’d merely move her from one master to another,” I said. “Would you have me do the same to you?”

“No, but—”

“But what? Should she suffer for having been born in a different society? And what are we, morally, if we don’t intervene? How can I willingly stand aside when I see someone forced to live with injustice and the fear of mortal sin?”

“Her quality of life is far better than that enjoyed by most of the population of England,” Margaret said. “I know that doesn’t make it right, but—”

“So she doesn’t deserve help? Because her circumstances come with certain measures of comfort? How can I ask to be treated as my husband’s equal, to be valued as fully as a gentleman in our own society, if I let my fellow women be used in a most abominable fashion?”

“Truth is, the harem doesn’t sound half-bad,” Margaret said. “But if Roxelana doesn’t want it, she shouldn’t be forced to stay.”

“No. She shouldn’t.” I rubbed my forehead. “We must find a way, Margaret. To leave her there makes us complicit with her captors. We’re worse than them, in fact, if we do nothing in the face of a situation we know to be wrong.”