The Winter Thief

35

“I want to check the other infirmaries,” Feride insisted. “We came all this way. I’m not going back to the city without finding him. He must be here somewhere.” She didn’t care anymore that he had a mistress. She just wanted him alive and home. Someone was trying to kill him, and it made her furious.

They were crowded into a farmer’s single-room house. Silver coins had persuaded him to host them. Feride, Elif, and Doctor Moreno sat on stools before a brazier, drinking the hot water with lemon juice the farmer’s wife had served them before withdrawing with her family into the attached stable. She had left them yoghurt and honey and some flat bread. A brindled cat wound itself around Feride’s feet. Vali and Nissim took turns standing guard outside the door.

Doctor Moreno agreed. “If Huseyin is suffering from burns, we must find him as soon as possible. Every minute is crucial.”

“Who knows what those small infirmaries are like? They probably don’t even have a doctor,” Elif added, coughing. The air was thick with fumes from the burning charcoal.

Feride thought Elif looked thin and unwell. Deep shadows circled her eyes. When Elif arrived at their home from Macedonia, she had been gaunt, a ghost evading every human contact. But her work at the Art Institute seemed to have revived a spark in her. Feride could see that spark dying. It had been a mistake to bring Elif on this quest. She should have seen that her friend wasn’t strong enough yet.

Üsküdar was a center of shipping and trade. The farmer had given them directions to three infirmaries, all attached to mosques. They were often full, he told them. The previous year, he had brought his son to one after he had broken a leg, but the crew of a ship had fallen ill and taken up every bed. The local bonesetter had gone home to his village to help with the harvest, so the boy wasn’t treated and now walked with a limp. Feride flinched at the pain he must have endured. She could understand that there was no free bed, but surely someone could have set the boy’s leg or stilled his pain with laudanum.

They filed out of the cottage. Vali carried a lamp. The sky was dark, but with that deep fragility that preceded dawn.

“I still say we should wait until it’s light,” Nissim growled.

Doctor Moreno put his head close to the burly boatman’s ear, but Feride heard him say, “The hanoum is worried, and so am I,” before they disappeared over the crest of the hill.

Feride put her hand on Elif’s arm and held her back. “Are you well, my sister? You look very tired.”

Elif smiled. “Of course, my dear. We’re all tired. But we’ll find Huseyin. Don’t worry.”

“If you’d rather…?”

“No,” Elif said hurriedly. Her voice was strained. “I’m fine. Really. Let’s go on.”

Vali returned, holding the light.

“We’re coming,” Elif said, and followed him down the hill into the vineyards. The light went with them.

Feride stopped for a moment and looked up at the fading stars, tiny specks of ice in an infinite sky that cared nothing about a small boy’s pain. She turned around, startled by the sound of a twig breaking. She opened her mouth to shout and began to run down the hill after the others, but could no longer see Vali’s light.