Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Seraglio, Lily discovered, teemed with babies, small children, and their mothers. One pregnant woman provided no distraction. A newly arrived widow, and an English one at that, did.
Her lecture on the Russian court overflowed with eager young women, most of them more curious about Lily than the topic.
“Lecture” may have been too formal a word for a talk given in a room with blue tiled walls and lined with cushions where giggling students reclined. Some of them nursed their babies.
“You have been to Russia, Zambak?” one wide-eyed girl asked. She looked to be no more than sixteen.
Lily inclined her head to acknowledge the truth. “My father served in Saint Petersburg.”
“Did you meet your husband there?” the girl asked.
The husband. Lies pile on lies. I have none and probably never will.
She struggled to formulate an answer. She and Valide Sultan agreed their story needed to be simple. She married a man in the British Foreign Service. He died en route to Constantinople, leaving Lily without protection. The women of the Seraglio understood what it was to be without protection.
“No, I met him in England,” she said.
“Do not tease Zambak about it,” an older girl scolded. “It makes her sad to talk about such things.”
“I’m sorry, Zambak, for your sorrow,” the girl apologized. She brightened abruptly. “But soon you will have your baby. If it is a boy, it will be a reminder of him.”
A sudden sharp memory of Richard, fierce concern for her in his eyes, stabbed her. The arrogant fool cares for everyone as if they were his own. She knew she admired that even as she wished more from him.
“See, foolish one, you make her even sadder,” the older girl chided. “Her son will never know his father.”
Boy or girl will never know. Never. Even if we return to England, it can’t happen.
Hushing quieted even the most curious of the girls. Sympathy looked back at Lily from around the room.
“Tell us again about Russia’s policy in Poland,” one of them asked, diverting the conversation back to their studies. Most of them had proved more astute than Lily would have expected. She tried to picture Lady Sarah Wharton curious about Russian intentions in Poland and could not.
They streamed out into the sunlight when Lily finished.
She gathered up notes, wrapped the still unfamiliar shawls around her shoulders, and followed them.
She thought she might seek a fountain she had discovered near the women’s quarters.
Fountains here did not dance; scarcity of water made that foolish.
They were, however, beautifully decorated.
She thought to sit for a moment and bask in the coolness before she filled her water skin.
A messenger intercepted her halfway there. The young eunuch made obeisance and gave her the message.
Sahin Pasha wishes to speak with you. It is not permitted that you meet alone. Come to the audience chamber by the old gate at sunset.
Valide Sultan
Sahin? She had been there a month with no word from him.
What now? Perhaps he has word from Papa.
Her heart began to race.
The head on the pole looked down at Richard with empty eye sockets, long since pecked empty by crows.
From the look of the thing, it hung there several weeks before he reached Thessaloniki.
If its location in front of the gate meant to squelch the rebels, the grumbling in the streets indicated that it had failed.
The decaying horror told Richard even less than it had the day he arrived, still puffed up with the excitement of disguises and assumed identities four days before.
A coup had been thwarted. This man, most likely Volkov’s agent, paid dearly.
Whether Volkov skulked nearby, whether he came to Thessaloniki and departed, or even whether he came at all, the sunken face could not say.
Richard passed the sight, pulled his tattered hat down across his eyes, and elbowed his way through the crowd in the square. In twenty paces, he heard a half dozen miserable grumbles and at least one outright treasonous threat. He ignored them.
A message led him to a tavern that was seedy even by port standards. It lay streets off the main square. A quick scan of the place showed him his contact had not arrived. He took a seat where he could watch the door and called for ouzo.
Richard paid the barkeeper, drank deep, and slunk back in morose silence.
The distraction he had enjoyed in his disguise on Malta faded in this third rate Greek port of call where the identity he assumed required him to stay in a bug-ridden inn like any good merchant would.
The novelty had worn thin to the point of fraying.
What the hell am I doing here? In one month I’ve abandoned everything I worked for, the life I planned, and everything I thought I held dear in pursuit of a woman who made it clear she does not wish my protection. What is this madness?
A stocky man with full beard and hair around his shoulders entered, bringing Richard to attention. The furtive little man behind him put him on his guard. The knife in Richard’s belt under his loose jacket felt comforting against his back. The one in his boot felt even more so.
The bearded one saw him and gestured to the other with his head. The two sat in front of him, glancing around all the while as if watching for the sultan’s agents.
“You, merchant, are trouble. I want paid now,” the bearded one said.
“Who is your friend?” Richard asked.
“No one I want to know. Pay me now, and he may talk.”
Richard pulled a leather pouch from under his jacket, weighed it in his hand, and held it up. “What we agreed on, not a cent more. I should take coins out for—” He meant to say “being late,” but the bearded one grabbed the coins and bolted for the door.
“You better be worth it,” Richard told the man left behind.
“Do you value your life?”
Richard nodded as much to keep the man talking as to agree.
“I am your one warning. You ask too many questions.”
“Too many for whom? Russia or the Ottomans.”
“Both.”
So there are Russian agents on the ground. That answered one question.
“I leave them to their conflict. My interest is in a woman.”
The furtive little man looked back, his face a mask of indifference. “Women come and go.”
“One passed through here. Maria Dalco. I’ve been told she met her ‘aunt’ and sailed on.” The statement got no reaction. “Another woman, possibly English, sailed with an Ottoman party. She may or may not have disembarked.” The man sat stone-faced.
“Do you know of either?” Richard demanded.
The man shook his head. “What do we care about women?”
“Volkov cared for the one I seek.”
Fear, clear and unmistakable, flashed across the man’s eyes.
“What is that to me?”
“Do you know which of these two he may have followed?” Or coerced, or led, or— Richard shuddered to think what else.
“I know nothing of this,” the man said. “You may not care about the works of Russia and the Sublime Porte, but they may not be so indifferent about you. Have a care. Your questions poke at a viper pit.” He rose to leave, but he leaned on the table first. “I would depart Thessaloniki. Quickly.” He left before Richard could stop him.
He walked back past the seat of Ottoman power with its grizzly decoration hanging on the pole in front. He couldn’t tell what Russia planned, not officially, and he couldn’t be sure whether or not the unrest was as dispersed and leaderless as it seemed.
Richard was out of patience, out of ideas, and out of questions. He only knew one thing for certain, Volkov’s man died an ugly death. Volkov had threatened the same fate for Lily’s father, if not Lily herself once, if that happened.
I have to find her.
He had no idea if she had really gone to Constantinople or why. He could go back to London with nothing and admit his stupidity or push on to Constantinople.
Gathering his belongings took moments. An hour later he walked toward the docks to look for transport on a coastal vessel. His cash dwindled, but he could get more in Constantinople. No more disguises.
A new thought occurred to him. Witnesses in Malta said the English woman with the Ottoman party appeared to be surrounded by eunuch guards.
If Lily had put herself in Ottoman company, she went with Sahin Pasha—voluntarily or unwillingly.
The crazy old man may have some notion of responsibility for her.
It would be like him to stash her in the sultan’s Seraglio itself.
He stepped onto a brightly painted boat with a smile on his face.