The Snake Stone

42

For centuries, Ottoman navies had been refitted and supplied by the arsenal, close to Tophane, which exceeded in size and scope any naval yard east of Venice’s own forbidden Arsenale. By day, the district was an inferno of blazing kilns and molten metals, of sailors struggling to unload the ships that came down from the Black Sea with their cargoes of timber and hemp, the mastic boats from Chios, Egyptian flax, Anatolian copper, iron ore from the Adriatic ports: the raw materials of the empire which served to keep its navy afloat-if no longer formidable.

By night Tophane drew in upon itself. The foundry fell silent; the views across the Bosphorus to the hills of Asia bled into darkness; the cargo ships creaked wearily at their moorings. No lamps were lit in the twisting alleyways, where sailors and brothel keepers, loafers and thieves jostled and cursed one another in the darkness; only flickering lanterns were hung in small windows, or at the low lintels of a doorway, guiding men to their taverns and drinking holes, to rum and raki and tired couplings on straw pallets and the sweet, cloying smell of the pipe.

Yashim let Preen lead the way.

It was in the third tavern they tried that a Maltese sailor, reddened with drink, abruptly explained to Preen his plans for the evening. Those plans included her. When Preen demurred, the Maltese smashed a bottle on the floor and went for her face with the jagged edge.

Yashim blocked the blow with his forearm, which earned him the attention of a party of Maltese sailors who were still apparently upset by the massacre of innocent men, women, and children on the island of Chios by Ottoman irregular troops sixteen years before.

“He hit me! The bastard!”

“Baby killer! You murderer!”

Yashim didn’t know what they were talking about.

They backed out of the door together.

Preen began to walk very fast downhill. The lane led away from the city and toward the waterfront. Before Yashim could call her back, the tavern door flew open and the Maltese party spilled out onto the lane.

They decided they would cut Yashim up for his part in a massacre at which none of them had been present. Some of them flicked knives open. They began to run downhill.

Yashim heard them coming.

He needed to get Preen ahead of the Maltese by one corner, a few seconds to hide.

He grabbed her arm.

At the first turning he glanced at the walls: in the dark they seemed smooth, not even offering a doorway. There was an alley running downhill again, a few yards farther on: they had to make that corner before the Maltese saw them. He spun Preen to the right.

“Baby killer! We’ll cut you!”

The alley dropped away; there were steps, of a kind. Preen and Yashim took them three at a time. They were close to the shore.

At the bottom of the steps Yashim bore around to the right: he had a vague idea that they could follow the shoreline and cut back up later.

“There he is! Get him!”

The Maltese were on the steps.

Preen stumbled and screamed.

Yashim caught her by the arm again and wrenched her around the corner.

The wall on their left dropped away: they were on the quay. Ahead he could see the upright poles of the landing stage, with a single caique resting between them.

If they could just make it to the boat-

A man came out from an alley to the right and walked toward the caique.

“Wait!” Yashim bellowed.

The man did not look around. He stepped into the caique. The rower put his hand to the oar.

Yashim and Preen were twenty yards off. The caique started forward with a lurch.

“Wait! Help!” Yashim shouted. “Help me!” he shouted in Greek.

He flung an arm around the mooring pole. The caique was ten feet out. The rower looked at Yashim, then back along the quay to where the Maltese had just appeared.

The man in the caique glanced around. He nodded to the rower and the caique slid back. Preen and Yashim rolled aboard.

As the caique shot forward again, the Maltese slowed. They jogged along the waterfront, shaking their fists.

“Baby killer!”

Yashim looked up to thank the man, and to apologize.

“We need to get a watchman here,” he said.

The man shrugged.

It was Alexander Mavrogordato.