Chapter 6
“I will take you to Kemeralti ?arsisi,” the driver said as soon as Alexander and Banks explained their task.
Alexander knew from his brief study of his guidebook that a kemeralti was a marketplace.
The driver added something in Turkish, which Banks quickly translated as, “It is where I took the others.”
The motorcar was forced to stop when the streets grew too close to pass through.
The driver and Banks held a brief conversation, and Alexander took in their surroundings.
The streets were not as busy as they had been hours earlier on the way to the hotel, but there were plenty of people out despite the fact that it was nearing ten in the evening.
Men sat in clusters, tobacco smoke drifting up to the swooping awnings stretched between buildings, the various colors glowing from the lanterns set on tables or hung beside doors.
Men and women walked in and out of deep shadow, some in Western dress, others draped in flowing robes.
Vendors of fruit and vegetables had taken away their carts for the night, but down the street was someone curled under a covered stand, looking to be guarding their wares.
Homesickness swept through him in an unexpected, confusing wave.
The uneven stones under his feet, the murmur of conversations mixed with the quiet sounds of family life in the homes above the market stalls, and the battling scents of smoke, food, and humanity—this place was so similar to his grandfather’s town of Kyllini.
He’d spent weeks there as a boy, caught between feeling like he’d found his home and being an outsider with a funny name.
Here, he was just as much a stranger, even if it felt very right to be standing on this street.
He had no further time to dwell on the odd, displaced feeling. Banks was waving at the driver as he carefully backed the motorcar out of the street.
Before Alexander could ask, Banks said, “He’s going to park somewhere less conspicuous and then take a rest in that han”—he nodded to a red awning a few stalls down, where a group of men sat talking as one might at a pub—“until we find him.”
“Did he have any ideas where they might be?” Alexander asked.
“There are many hanut in this part of town,” Banks said, nodding to indicate they should start moving. “He suggested we check each one. Some places are livelier than others.” Banks cast him a speaking look.
Lively could mean anything from a pub to a brothel. Alexander had no idea what to expect of a place where the former was illegal and the latter was not. He heaved a sigh. “Lead on.”
They walked the length of one street, peering into several tavern-like spaces.
Turks drank tea or smoked within, usually spilling out onto the crooked pavement in the front.
They spotted the occasional Westerner, usually in pairs or groups of three.
They did find one place Alexander was quite sure was a brothel, with red fabric draped over the doorway and two men standing idly outside, but he and Banks had found no trace of their colleagues there or anywhere else.
By the time they reached a crossroads in the sprawling market, they were both a few coins lighter and none the wiser about where the assistants had gone.
A breeze laced with tangy seawater pushed momentarily away the scents of smoke and cooking. A string of magenta blossoms fell over a cracked wall where they paused, stepping into the shadow of a darkened two-story building. Banks leaned against the wall and smoked as they watched the passersby.
“Maybe we should head back, Ashton,” Banks said at long last. “I’m not willing to risk missing going to the agora tomorrow because we’ve exhausted ourselves.”
What would become of four na?ve men of twenty looking for a thrill if they left them to their own devices?
He considered the street again, avoiding giving attention to a pair of women across the street who’d stopped and, despite their dark coverings, were showing interest in them.
Alexander shook his head. “You go. Send the driver back for me. I’ll give it another hour and then return.
Hopefully they’ve already made their way back. ”
Banks flicked his cigarette butt to the ground. “Very noble, but a little sideways. You can’t walk about alone around here, even if you could speak the language.”
“Let’s try one more place then,” said Alexander. “A few Westerners have walked down that way.”
The two women, floating like ghosts cloaked in their dark robes, shadowed them. The hairs on the back of Alexander’s neck stood up. Women they might be, but he knew better than to underestimate a motivated woman.
It wasn’t long after Alexander was called away that Saffron began to feel quite tired. She’d allowed Clark’s show of goodwill to encourage her to socialize a bit longer, but each passing minute added weight to her eyelids, she decided to call it a night.
The richly carpeted stairs felt inordinately long, and Saffron mused she’d have to toughen up quite a bit if she was to make it through a more than a month of research in the agora.
It was on flat land, and in the middle of the city, but she would be doing much more physical work than her occupation at the university entailed.
She could practically hear Clark teasing her about being too weak to do so simple as climbing a staircase.
The first floor appeared before her eyes hazy and twinkling with its electric sconces covered in colorful mosaics.
Saffron blinked hard. Perhaps the smoke from the constant stream of cigarettes and cigars throughout the evening was irritating her eyes, as Martin Neill had complained.
She rubbed her eyes and blinked again, but the hall before her was still blurry.
Saffron took another step up the stairs toward the second floor, her mind conjuring the cloying scent of incense, and shook her head slowly.
It was like her brain had melted to slush. But a nagging thought kept surfacing.
Saffron gripped the stair rail and lowered herself to the bottom step. Sudden lethargy, blurred vision, and the feeling of moving as if she were under water … Someone had slipped her a sleeping drug. Again.
That realization sobered her up by half. Her heart began to pound very loudly in her ears and she tried to concentrate. Someone had given her something to incapacitate her. She was in a hotel full of strangers in a foreign land. Alexander wasn’t here. Was that purposeful?
Her head reeled with panic and sudden nausea. She fought down the urge to vomit.
Wait! She stood up too fast and stumbled, barely catching the rail before falling.
She concentrated on the feel of the cool wood under her hands.
If studying poisons had taught her anything, it was that the body’s inclination to vomit was very apt.
She surely hadn’t been injected with anything, nor was it the smoke she’d inhaled as none of the others were stumbling around.
Getting up her stomach contents would likely be helpful, though not appropriate for the hallway.
Concentrating all her might on not falling over, Saffron took slow steps up the stairs.
The climb seemed to take forever and she wasn’t sure she’d make it to her room before collapsing into sleep.
It was tempting to call for help, but she didn’t know who would answer her.
Possibly whoever had done this to her to begin with.
Fighting against a riptide of exhaustion, she dragged herself to the white paneled door of her room.
Sweat beaded on her forehead. Even breathing seemed to challenge her, but she made it to her hotel room’s door.
Her beaded purse slipped from her lax hand and she sank to the carpeted ground to retrieve it.
Though her body longed to recline there, head leaning against the door jamb, legs sprawled beneath her, that would not do.
With an almighty effort, the thousand-ton key was brought to the lock and turned.
Saffron stared at the door. Now it was unlocked, she had to go inside.
With a groan of effort, she clung to the curved door handle and pulled herself back up.
A deep breath and a step forward brought her inside the dim room.
The bell pull was endlessly far away, the blurry outline of the corded rope taunting her.
She refused to allow herself to sit during the long minutes she waited for the maid. If she allowed her eyes to close or her body to rest, she’d fall into the abyss and who knows what would happen. Imagining dreadful uses for a drugged woman proved a good way to stay alert.
She tore a piece of paper from her notebook and began scrawling a note to Alexander, getting only a few words down before she stopped.
Even in her hazy mental state, she could see his alarmed expression, wide eyes hardening into determination as he realized who was the likely culprit.
He’d probably confront Clark and that would lead to even more resentment.
She put the pen back down. She’d deal with this on her own.
A quiet knock on the door came at long last and Saffron told the very confused-looking girl who stood at the door she needed water, salt, and if they had it, ground mustard seeds.
The maid stared at her, large brown eyes in a round face shocked at such a request from such a strangely behaving guest. Pale, sweating, and slurring her words was not how Saffron wanted to present herself to anyone.
The maid returned a few minutes later with Saffron’s requested items and agreed to remind the reception desk to have a girl come to wake her in the morning.
Saffron took the tray to the small table in front of the opened window, dumped the contents of the dishes into a glass with water, then, with a mumbled curse, drank it down.
The emetic was effective before long. Heart pounding and mouth sour, she pushed herself away from the basin and onto the bed.