The Snake Stone

75

The crowd absorbed her, as Amelie had known it would. She stayed close to a group of women in charshafs, holding the shawl up close to her face, her hand touching her nose, as they walked lumpily down the Golden Horn. Porters came past, bowed beneath terrific parcels, sacks of grain, chests.

In front of the Spice Bazaar she changed direction and began to make her way up the street that led from the New Mosque to the ancient Han of Rustem Pasha. The crowds were thinning now; around the han, where merchants sat cross-legged in front of their shops, she attracted the odd glance. It was hard for her to walk like a Stambouliot woman, and now she was walking on her own.

At the han she turned into the cobbled lane that ran beneath the walls of the Topkapi Palace. Glancing up, she recognized the enclosed balcony from which the sultan had always inspected marches and processions; ahead, she could make out the swooping eaves of the fountain of Ahmed III, its marble paneling chased with Koranic verses. The sight made her feel thirsty.