Cybele's Secret

“A man such as that does not offer a young woman gifts for no reason,” Irene said with a crooked smile. “Duarte cuts a fine figure; women admire him. A man with a reputation has more glamour than an upright fellow with a spotless record. And, of course, girls love the notion that a bad man can be turned to good, as long as he has the right woman to help him.”

“You sound very cynical.”

“Your father allows you considerable freedom, Paula. I respect him for that. But you should heed my warning where Duarte is concerned. If he thinks he can use you to achieve a goal, he will do so without scruples. If he continues to pay you attention, you should question his motives at every turn.”

I said nothing. Her speech had left me more than a little deflated. It was not possible, apparently, that a man like Duarte Aguiar could admire me for myself, as an intellectual foil. And as a woman.

“Do you think you will see him again?” Irene asked casually, rising to slip off her wrap, stretching like a cat, then stepping into her delicately embroidered undergarments.

“Maybe,” I said. “My father has been invited to a supper; it’s likely Duarte will also be there. I will be careful. The thing is, I did like talking to him. It made me feel…alive.” It had made me feel as full of life as I had long ago in the Other Kingdom, debating all night with the scholars, wizards, and sages of that mysterious realm. There, nobody had worried about who liked whom or whether anyone had hidden motives. All had loved ideas; all had been excited by theories and argument. I thought of Tati, who had made that strange world her home. How could she have shown herself to me, then vanished before I could say any of the things I wanted to?

“You look sad.” Irene’s tone was soft. “What’s troubling you, Paula?”

“It’s nothing.” I dropped my own wrap and dressed myself in the fresh set of clothing I had brought: my gray gown and a plain white scarf. I was saving the plum outfit for supper at Barsam’s house.

“Come back in the morning,” Irene said. “You need company, books, stimulation.”

“Thank you. I will come if Stoyan is available to bring me. He may be busy again; Father has a lot to fit in.”

“How long until this supper?”

“Two days.”

“If you need Murat to fetch you again, just send a message,” Irene said. “I do not want you to be alone at the han and unhappy, Paula. Besides, here you are safe from predators such as Duarte Aguiar.”

I heard Murat’s voice from outside and, answering, Stoyan’s. I felt unaccountably relieved to hear him.

“Is it the supper that is worrying you?” Irene asked delicately. “A Muslim household, perhaps?”

“I don’t think so, or I wouldn’t have been invited,” I told her. “All I was told was to bring a chaperone. Maria will probably come with us. I wish I understood a little better about the rules governing women’s behavior here in Istanbul.”

“If it is a Muslim household, Paula, you might perhaps accompany your father there, but you could be admitted only to the haremlik, the women’s quarters. If the purpose of the supper is to conduct a business transaction—I am assuming this may be so in view of your father’s occupation—any Islamic traders attending would not be prepared to continue if you were present. You might consider that grossly unfair, but it is the way things work in this part of the world. Those of us who live here discover our own forms of freedom, as no doubt you will if you stay among us long enough.”

I did not answer. I could not do so without revealing the nature of our business and the purpose of Barsam’s supper.

“You hesitate to say more.” Irene was fastening a row of tiny clips down the front of her braided tunic. “I think it is time for complete honesty, Paula. There should be no secrets between friends.”

I opened my mouth to say that the secret was Father’s, not mine, but she spoke first.

“I will tell you what I know, and you can confirm it as truth or falsehood. I’ve recently been provided with some information. It concerns a rare artifact that is for sale in Istanbul. I’ve been told the vendor lives near the Mosque of Arabs and that competition for the item is fierce, with a number of merchants having traveled to the city for the purpose of bidding. I heard that the transaction is cloaked in the utmost secrecy.”

“Secrecy?” I echoed, stunned. “It cannot be so secret if you’ve heard all this.”

“I know more. Duarte Aguiar is one of the interested parties, and Teodor of Braşov another. I see you are shocked. You should not be. All I am demonstrating to you is that a woman can be more capable than a man of putting two and two together and making four. I have a wide circle of acquaintances in the city, Paula, and I’m a good listener. In this particular instance, it may set your father’s mind at rest if I tell you I obtained my knowledge from a single source: a former acquaintance of Murat’s at Topkapi Palace. The information will go no further, I promise you. The fact that I have not mentioned this to you earlier I offer as proof that I know when to keep my mouth shut. Your father’s trade secrets are perfectly safe with me. My own collection consists solely of books and manuscripts, none of them particularly rare. I have no interest whatever in religious artifacts. Now tell me, is this supper to be held at the house of an Armenian?”

She had indeed shocked me. There seemed no point in holding back what she evidently knew perfectly well already. “Barsam the Elusive,” I said, nodding.

“This is exciting for you, Paula. I see that. To be involved in the purchase of such an item must quicken the blood of any merchant. I have a warning for your father. You may pass on what I have told you, in confidence, of course, and add that Murat’s source believed it will not be long before the Mufti’s representatives carry out raids on the premises of all the potential buyers for this item. This relates to the matter the women were discussing on your first visit here—the revival of an ancient cult in Istanbul. It is Cybele’s cult the rumors refer to. The Sheikh-ul-Islam, of course, is outraged at the possibility of pagan rites taking a grip in this devoutly Muslim city and will be keen to shut them down. On this issue, his Jewish and Christian counterparts in Istanbul are very likely to agree with him. His men will be looking for any evidence that will allow them to track the artifact and, through it, the leaders of this supposed cult, who, it is assumed, will be just as keen to acquire Cybele’s Gift as everyone else seems to be. Let Master Teodor know it may be expedient to conceal any documentation related to this purchase. Such a visit will not be conducted gently.”

“Thank you,” I said, shocked that she knew so much and horrified at the thought that, without the warning, Father might have been caught unprepared by the Mufti’s men. “I will certainly tell him. Now I must go; I hear Stoyan.”

“Of course, Paula. I hope we will see you again tomorrow.”

Stoyan was looking particularly impenetrable. It was late; long shadows stretched across the streets, and from the rooftops dark birds screeched to one another, offering their last territorial challenges before nightfall. We walked briskly.

“Thank you for coming to fetch me,” I ventured.

A nod in response.

“Is everything all right? Was there a problem with the Neapolitan merchant?”

“It was complicated, kyria. Your father will explain.”

“Complicated?”

“Master Teodor will tell you. The meeting did not proceed quite as he expected. Then, when we returned to the han, he was upset to find you gone.”

“I left a message. You must have got it or you wouldn’t be here.”

Stoyan turned his gaze on me but did not slow his pace. “The house of Irene of Volos is the first place I would have looked for you, Kyria Paula. You think if you were missing, I would stay at the han and do nothing?” He sounded less than his calm self.

“I’m sorry if I upset anyone. It was a long morning, and Murat did come to fetch me. I’m not completely irresponsible.” I did not tell him that I had sent the tea vendor’s boy to buy me a set of robes like those the old women wore, black and all-concealing. I did not mention that I’d been on the verge of putting them on and going out by myself.

There was silence as we walked on. We crossed the square with the shady tree under which the storyteller was accustomed to sit. The man had shut up business and gone home; it was almost time for the evening call to prayer.

“I know that,” Stoyan said quietly. “Your father received your message. But he was worried about you, kyria. Now we should make haste. Best if you are safely indoors before dark.”

I lengthened my stride. We walked past a coffee shop where a lot of men were sitting or standing around a central brazier. Dusk was falling; the little fire glowed amber. Eyes turned toward us. Stoyan moved so that he was between me and the watchers.

“You keep up well for such a small thing,” he observed when we were safely past.

“I was brought up in the mountains,” I said.

“So,” Stoyan said as we made our way along the narrow, shadowy street that led toward the han, “you can walk fast and climb. You can float in deep water, even with your boots on. A woman of many talents.”

The smile in his voice surprised me. “You don’t make jokes very often, Stoyan,” I said.

“I have offended you?”

“Not at all. I liked your joke.”

A group of men passed close by us, and Stoyan put his hand against my back, lightly, as if to reassure me that I had a protector. It felt nice—better than it should have to a woman like me, who had always believed she could look after herself. As soon as the men were out of sight, he took his hand away.

“May I ask you a question, Stoyan?”

“Of course,” Stoyan replied.

“I heard some disturbing rumors about Senhor Duarte. You’ve been in Istanbul for some time. What do you know about him?”

“That man, Aguiar, he is not a suitable friend for you. I was troubled by his interest in you at the çarşi.”

I could not think of an adequate response. “It wasn’t exactly my choice,” I said rather lamely. “He just came up and took over the shopping. I could hardly tell him to go away; that would have been rude.”

“Such men, offered a pinch of salt, will take a bucketful, kyria. But you are a woman of independence; you will make your own path. See, we are almost home. Your father will tell you of his meeting. He is worried; you should hear him out.”

I was worried, too, now and confused by the things he had said. “I will,” I said. “Thank you for bringing me home.”

At the han, Father was pacing up and down on the gallery, his face drawn and tired. This could not be solely from concern that I had gone out without prior permission. He’d already approved my excursions to Irene’s. I deposited my bundle of clothing on my bed and returned to our central chamber while Stoyan went to buy supper.

“What happened?” I asked straight out. “Come, sit down, Father. You look exhausted. Stoyan wouldn’t explain to me. Has something gone wrong?”

“Not exactly.” Father sighed, then settled on the cushions opposite me. “I suppose it could even be interpreted as good news. Antonio of Naples is withdrawing his interest in Cybele’s Gift. He no longer wishes to compete.”

“You bought him off?”

“I never had the chance to try. Antonio received a warning. I was with him when it arrived. Whatever was in that message—it was in writing, and after he’d read it he consigned the paper to a brazier—was enough to turn him the color of goat cheese. He told me immediately that he was pulling out. This reduces our competition. Nonetheless, it troubles me.”

He wasn’t the only one. “You think the letter was a threat?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” A certain note in Father’s voice told me he wasn’t giving me the full story. He reached across and took both my hands in his. “It’s not so very long since Salem bin Afazi was killed, Paula. I’m beginning to think I was foolishly naive when I decided it would be safe to bring you to Istanbul and to involve you in this particular business. When we returned here and you were gone, it alarmed me.”

“I did leave a—”

“Yes, yes, I know. You did the right thing. But the situation has changed. I’m concerned about your welfare.”

I could just see it. The next thing would be a decision not to let me come to the supper at Barsam’s house. If someone outbid Father, I might never get to see Cybele’s Gift. I bit back a childish protest: It’s not fair! I must consider what was best—for Father, for Tati, for me. Just possibly, for the Other Kingdom as well. Before I could even think about Cybele’s Gift, I needed to deal with the mystery of the manuscript and Tati’s appearances. I had to solve that puzzle. As for Father, I must pass on the information I had been given without delay.

Stoyan came back up the steps, bearing a platter of steaming rice topped with chunks of roast lamb on skewers. It gave off a tantalizing odor combining lemon, mint, and spices.

“Thank you, Stoyan,” said Father as this dish was set on the low table between us. “Paula, you know how badly I want this deal to be successful. You’ve worked hard to help me, and you’ve proven yourself an able assistant. But I don’t like exposing you to this world of power plays and scheming. Nor, I find, am I as comfortable as I hoped to be about your situation as a woman in a man’s world. You are vulnerable, like it or not. The Portuguese had a certain look in his eye. So, I am certain, did Alonso di Parma the day you struck your deal with him. I didn’t much care for it.”

“Maybe that’s true,” I said, “but surely there’s an advantage to you in the very fact that I am a woman, and a young one at that. Men do tend to assume a girl is incapable of fully understanding a conversation about trading or related matters. I might hear all sorts of things you wouldn’t. Father, I have some information for you. I think it’s important.” I told them what Irene had said—that raids on trading centers were imminent and that it might be appropriate to do a little rearranging of documents. That the Mufti was interested in Cybele’s Gift and anyone who might be bidding for it. “Irene implied that their methods might be rather rough,” I added. “It sounds as if this is not as secret as you’ve believed, Father. I’ve been careful not to talk about Cybele’s Gift, even when the women at the hamam were discussing this underground cult. I didn’t give away any secrets. But Irene does know a lot about what’s going on, through her steward’s contacts at Topkapi.”

Father whistled under his breath. “It seems we are in your Greek friend’s debt,” he said. “It’s very possible the agents of the Sheikh-ul-Islam will be here in the morning. As soon as we finish this meal, I will prepare for such a visit. I’ve been careful not to put certain information in writing. However, there are papers, including a promissory note from a bank in Venice, that must be concealed. And I have Salem’s letters. Let us eat quickly; this has set me on edge.”

Stoyan sat down beside us, and I passed around the small bowls we kept in our apartment.

“Paula—” Father began, and I sensed he was about to broach the topic of the supper and the risk to me of attending it.

“About the supper,” I said, “I know you’re probably concerned. Father, Duarte Aguiar seems to like me for some reason. Wouldn’t it be useful if I talked to him some more? As for Alonso di Parma, he’s such an outrageous flirt, he’s likely to let slip all kinds of secrets without even thinking.”

“A man doesn’t use his daughter as a tool of that kind, Paula.” Father was sounding tired and grim. “I think I have to give you the full story about Antonio.”

Something in his tone sent a chill down my spine. “What?” I asked. “Father, do you know who sent that letter to Antonio?” With a sinking heart, I recalled Irene’s warnings about Duarte Aguiar.

“No, Paula,” Father said heavily. “There are at least seven parties interested in Cybele’s Gift, and I suppose the message could have come from any of the others. As for these searches by the Mufti, that kind of interference in the business of established merchants is highly unusual. Generally the Muslims are tolerant of ‘People of the Book’—that is, Christians and Jews. We’re not seen as ungodly, since we have our own holy scripture and live in accordance with its codes. Because of that, the Sultan allows us our places of worship in the city, even if the grandest have been converted into mosques. It’s a different case with folk viewed as pagan, devotees of more primitive deities.”

“Such as Cybele,” I said.

“Indeed. This visit in the morning may be a little awkward. I’d prefer you to be absent from the han while the Mufti’s representatives are here. It may be necessary not to lie but to withhold certain information. I’ve no intention of being the one who betrays the whereabouts of Cybele’s Gift to someone who could only plan to destroy it.”

“I’ve been invited back to Irene’s. If you can spare Stoyan, he could take me there. Father, you were going to tell me about Antonio. About the threat.”

“Antonio told me what was in the letter before he consigned it to the fire. The threat was not to himself but to his wife—you met her that day at the markets—and their children. It was precise, inventive, and ugly. Consider the fact that the man who sent that letter is likely to be present at this supper. I think it best that you do not come, Paula. You can spend the evening here with Maria instead.”

I swallowed my first response. “I see. You think Maria can protect me better than Stoyan can?”

“I will leave Stoyan here with you. He was hired as your guard, not mine.”

Stoyan half rose to his feet. “No, Master Teodor,” he protested. “For you to attend this supper without my protection would be foolhardy—”

“You can’t be in two places at once,” Father said reasonably enough.

“I believe it is wiser for all of us to go, Master Teodor,” said Stoyan. His tone was respectful. “Your daughter is a grown woman with a good head on her shoulders, resourceful and brave. If she accompanies you, I can protect you both. I do, in fact, believe that would be safer than leaving Kyria Paula here without us after dark. The han guards can do only so much.”

“Besides,” I put in, warmed by Stoyan’s description of me, which was so unlike the empty compliments other young men had offered me in the past, “we shouldn’t give in to bullying. That would be weak. If people threaten me, I don’t cave in. I fight back. That’s what we have to do.”

Something was stalking me. Its footsteps were soft as falling snow, its growl subterranean, menacing. It was gaining on me. I scrambled to get away, my feet skidding on the uneven floor of the tunnel, but something was clinging to my ankles, holding me back. I looked down and my skin crawled. A pair of long-nailed gray hands was clamped around my legs. I screamed and tried to wrench away. The creature clutched tighter, ripping my skirt and raking my flesh with scythe-sharp claws. Cackling laughter filled the dim passageway. The signs, someone whispered in my sister’s voice. Why didn’t you work out the signs? You’re the scholar, the clever one. How could you miss them? From behind now came a sound of rustling and a susurration of wings, louder by the moment. An army of small scuttling things swarmed over my feet. I slipped and sprawled full length. Their shells crunched beneath me, splitting to spill their entrails over the stone. Then came a horde of insects, swarming around my head, landing to crawl into any crevice they could discover, buzzing into my ears, flying up my nose. I put my hands up to cover my eyes and felt my fingers instantly thick with their fuzzy creeping legs. I opened my mouth to scream and they crowded in. I couldn’t breathe, I was going to die—

“Paula! Paula, wake up!”

I shuddered awake, sitting bolt upright in a tangle of blankets, my hands still clawing at my mouth. I could hear myself babbling in a mixture of terror and relief. My face was drenched in tears. I was in my little bedroom at the han, and Stoyan was crouched by the pallet with his arm around me. I was well beyond being shocked by that. The dream had been so real. I could still feel those things crawling on me. I could hear the sickening sound of their bodies breaking under me. I could feel them in my mouth, in my throat….

“Put my cloak around you, Paula. Here.”

Only half emerged from my nightmare, I still noticed that he had used my first name.

Now Stoyan was draping the cloak over my shoulders. “Breathe slowly…. That’s better.” I was dimly aware of his lifting a corner of his loose muslin undershirt to dry my eyes. I felt the brush of his fingers against my cheek, wiping away my tears, and then I was properly awake.

“Oh, God,” I muttered. “That was horrible. I’m so sorry if I woke you.” He was barefoot, clad only in the undershirt and light trousers, his mane of dark hair flowing unbound over his shoulders.

“You will not wish to be here alone in the dark. Keep the cloak on; we can sit on the gallery. It is not so cold tonight. I will stay with you until you are recovered.”

“Thank you. If you’re going to fetch tea, I’m coming with you.” I didn’t want to be by myself even for as long as it took him to walk down to the courtyard and come back again.

A little later, having obtained a supply of tea and a small shielded lantern, we were on the gallery once more. With Stoyan’s big cloak over my nightrobe, I was both warm and decently covered. He had flung a sheepskin coat on top of his thin shirt and trousers and had thrust his bare feet into his boots.

I knew, as I had done that other night when Stoyan had sat up with me until dawn, that the situation might be judged by some as improper. But Stoyan made me feel safe. And I could not wake Father—he had enough to worry about. I did not think the night guard would gossip. All the han workers were in awe of Stoyan.

Our eyes met in the lamplight as he put a glass of tea in my hand. He was calm, as always, but there was something different in his expression, a wariness I had not seen before. I did not bother trying to interpret it. I was just intensely glad he was there to sit with me and help keep the dark things at bay.

“I don’t want to talk about the dream,” I said. “I want to forget it. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I hate being out of control like this. I think someone’s trying to warn me. To show me what might happen if I get it wrong, if I can’t work it out.”

“What is it you must work out, Paula?”

I made a snap decision. “I want to show you something, Stoyan. I need your advice. Hold this for a moment.” Giving him back the glass, I went inside to fetch my notebook.

“I will not be able to help you,” he said flatly when I returned. His gaze was on the book.

“You might.” I was looking for the page on which I’d transcribed the little symbols. “Someone’s given me a puzzle, something to do with Cybele’s Gift. If you look—” I glanced up and was shocked by the expression on his face, which was suddenly as guarded as if we were total strangers. “What?” I asked.

“It shames me to tell you, kyria, but I cannot read. In your world, all men are scholars. I am not part of that world.” He had to force this out, and my heart bled for him.

“I don’t need you to read, Stoyan,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “just to look at something. Most people can’t read, you know. Most people aren’t given the opportunity to learn.”

“I have no wish to talk of this.”

I had really upset him. “Stoyan,” I said in a different tone, “we are friends, aren’t we? Be honest. Forget that we hired you as a guard and speak from the heart.”

His lips twisted into a self-mocking smile, but his tone was warm. “We are friends,” he said.

“Good,” I said. “It is not difficult to learn to read, provided you have a little time and a good teacher. I am a good teacher. I taught my younger sister, and she’s becoming quite a scholar. This is something I could help you with, if you want to learn.”

Stoyan hunched his shoulders and looked at his feet. “I cannot learn,” he muttered.

“Cannot? I don’t believe it.”

“I am a man of the land, kyria. In my village, even the elders do not possess this skill. Only the priest has any knowledge of letters.”

“What about a wager? I would lay odds on my ability to teach you successfully.”

His lips curved in a sweet smile, taking me by surprise. “I have nothing to wager,” he said. “Unless you are in need of a sharp knife or a pair of too-large boots.”

I was silent for a moment. “You said you would breed dogs one day. I’ll have a pup from the first litter, one that you don’t want for breeding stock. A…a Bugarski Goran. Do I have it right?”

“That is an item of more value than perhaps you realize, Paula.”

“If it’s anything like our farm dogs at home, I have a fair idea of its worth.”

“And what if you fail? What should be set against a creature of such price?”

“I won’t fail.”

“Nonetheless, you must wager something of equivalent value, Paula.”

I thought about this. It seemed to me there was only one thing I could give him that he really needed. “I suppose, when Father and I leave for home, you will take up the search for your brother again,” I said. “If you had funds, you could do so straightaway, without having to spend more time working as a guard. Once we’ve bought Cybele’s Gift, I can reasonably ask Father for some money of my own—”

“No.” Stoyan did not let me finish. His features had tightened and his eyes had lost their earlier warmth. “I will not take your charity, Paula. Finding Taidjut is my quest, my mission. I must earn the means to undertake it by my own labor. You insult me with this offer.”

“Insult?” Clearly I had made an error of judgment, but I had not thought he would be so offended by my suggestion, which seemed to me perfectly practical. “Pride is all very well, Stoyan, but sometimes we have to be practical about these things—”

“I will not discuss this with you,” Stoyan said. His voice was unsteady; I had really upset him. “You cannot understand.”

Now I was the one who was insulted. “Cannot? I thought you said I was a…a grown woman with a good head on my shoulders.”

“When I said so, I spoke the truth,” he said, his tone once more calm and even. His ability to control his temper was much better than mine. “But this is a matter beyond your comprehension. Perhaps beyond any woman’s.”

After a moment I said, “I see.” My heart was thumping; I realized I very much didn’t want to have an argument with him. “I suppose it’s immaterial anyway. I intend to win the wager.”

“From what Master Teodor tells me,” Stoyan said, “in one month you return to Transylvania and we part company. What can you teach me in a month?”

“Plenty,” I told him. “All your letters—it will have to be in Greek, since I don’t know your native tongue and you don’t know mine—and how to write your name and a few other things, sufficient to get you started. Enough to write a very short letter to your mother, which the priest can read to her.”

Stoyan said nothing. In his amber eyes I saw his image of his mother receiving such a missive, perhaps with news of the lost brother, Taidjut. The silence drew out.

“I’m sorry I upset you,” I said eventually. “I hate arguing with you.” It had made my stomach tie itself into a tight knot of distress.

“I too, Paula. Tell me, when might such study be undertaken? Your father pays me to guard his daughter, not to be the recipient of her wisdom.”

“We’ll make time. This is important.”

“To prove you are right and win the wager? You like dogs so much?”

“This is not about the dog. I want to prove to you that this is something you can do. I can see you view reading and writing as an arcane mystery, and I know it isn’t.”

“I am not of a scholarly persuasion, Paula. What is easy for you will be difficult for me.”

“Perhaps we should forget the wager, and you teach me something in return. Something that is easy for you and difficult for me.”

A slow smile spread across Stoyan’s face, lighting up his strange eyes. I wondered what I had started.

“I like this idea far better, Paula,” he said. “Let us agree to it.”

“Done,” I said, thinking how much I liked it when he called me by my name. It was not something I could tell him.

“Now, if you wish, I will look at this book,” Stoyan said, “though I cannot imagine I can be of much assistance. Tomorrow I will begin to teach you how to defend yourself against attackers. Unarmed combat. In that, I am expert.”

I put my chin up and tried for a confident look. “All right,” I said, as if lessons in self-defense were the kind of thing I did every day. “I suppose that might come in useful sometime.”

I showed him the page in my notebook where I had copied the little border designs from the Persian manuscript. “I think it’s a code or puzzle,” I told him, “but I can’t work out how to solve it. I thought of letters or numbers, a numeric sequence of some kind or perhaps a cryptic reference to another book. I cannot think what would be sufficiently well known.”

“The Koran?” Stoyan suggested, surprising me. “No, perhaps not. A devout person would not use the holy book in such a way. Why do you believe this puzzle has been set for you? How could anyone know you would be in this library except the Greek lady herself?”

I hesitated. Did I trust him enough to speak of the strange words that had appeared and disappeared? Could I tell him I had seen Tati? I looked at him, and Stoyan looked back, his scarred face pale in the lantern light, his hair a shadowy cascade across his powerful shoulders. I saw trust in his eyes, and honesty, and something else, something that drew me to him, yet made me look away.

“There have been other things,” I said in an undertone. “A woman dressed all in black. I’ve seen her several times now, at the docks, in a boat, in the library. She’s been leading me on a quest, at least I think that’s what it is. Back home, the folk of the Other Kingdom delighted in setting tests and trials. Usually they had reasons of their own, but it was also a way for human folk to learn lessons and become better people. When it happened to us before, it was all about keeping the forest safe, the place where they lived, and making sure our valley was looked after by someone fair and honest who respected the Other Kingdom. That turned out to be our second cousin Costi and my sister Jena. And at the same time, the quest was to help my eldest sister, Tati, and her sweetheart be together. The woman…When I heard her voice and saw her eyes, it was Tati, Stoyan. The sister who went away years ago and never came back.”

“Remarkable,” he breathed. “What is the nature of this quest?”

Somehow, I was not surprised that he had accepted my words without making the sort of remarks other folk would under such circumstances: That’s impossible or How could your sister be here in Istanbul? Stoyan was different. I had known that from the first.

“I don’t know, but I think it’s to do with Cybele’s Gift. That’s why it’s urgent to work out the clues. There was writing on the manuscript, writing that appeared and disappeared. ‘Find the heart, for there lies wisdom. The crown is the destination.’ Then, the next time I was in the library, I found another sheet of the same manuscript, and it had Cybele’s picture on it.”

Stoyan studied the little images awhile, brow furrowed. Then he said, “You spoke of a puzzle to solve. Perhaps it is less complex than you imagine. Put together in the right way, these fragments might make the image of a spreading tree with flowers and leaves, with small creatures at its feet and with birds and insects in its branches. A tree has both a heart, in the center of the old wood, and a crown, a canopy. Do you think?” His voice was hesitant.

“Why break the image up? Why make it so cryptic?” I wondered aloud.

“I cannot imagine,” Stoyan said quietly, “unless it is somehow secret. If this quest is indeed for you, Paula, perhaps this message was concealed thus so it would only become apparent when you were ready to read it.”

I was silent. Could Stoyan so quickly have solved a puzzle I had labored for hours to work out without success?

“We could put it to the test,” Stoyan suggested. “A tray of sand in which we can re-create this tree, or some small scraps of paper…I know your Father’s store of writing materials is not to be wasted, but…”

“We’ll need a tray of sand to practice our Greek letters,” I said.

“There is clean sand in the camel compound.” A pause. “I do not wish to leave you here alone, Paula.”

“I’ll be all right if I can keep the lantern.” It seemed wrong to let nightmares and apparitions get the better of me. I had always wanted to be my own woman, independent and brave. “But don’t take too long. Stoyan?” I spoke as he was heading off along the gallery, and he turned his head. “I like it when you call me Paula,” I said, against my better judgment. “And please don’t answer that it’s inappropriate.”

“It is just for the nighttime,” Stoyan said, his voice like a shadow. Then he was gone.

It was a strange thing to say, and I wondered if I had misheard him. I made myself concentrate on the images, putting them together in my mind to make a stylized picture, doing my best to work out what kind of tree it might be—something with broad, heart-shaped leaves, not needles; something with flowers; something much visited by small creatures of one kind or another. The more I imagined this tree, the more I saw the form of the bee goddess in it, the leaves her wild hair, the roots her strong feet, the bulbous trunk and generous limbs a mirror of Cybele’s own body.

Make me whole, her spectral voice whispered. I tried hard not to look along the gallery into the dark recesses at its far corners, where anything might be lurking.

Stoyan came back at a run, balancing a tray filled with damp sand. The lantern light was not ideal for fine work, but we set the tray on the small table, and while I held up the book with my notes, he marked the sand out as a grid with thirty squares, then began to copy the shapes with a twig, filling each square with one of the small patterns, trying to place them in the way he had envisaged would form the trunk, branches, and leaves of a tree. I tried to note which ones he had used so he didn’t double up or leave any out. For a long time, we murmured instructions and suggestions to each other as he crouched by the table, making a line here, rubbing out a squiggle there, doing his best to make it work.

“If this theory proves correct,” Stoyan said, erasing several images with a sigh and examining the notebook page again, “where does it take us?”

“I don’t know. I stumbled on the manuscript at random when I was browsing through a box of bits and pieces that hadn’t been sorted out. It’s too much of a coincidence for me to find these, unless it’s a trail I’m supposed to follow. I’m sure Irene didn’t know what was in the box, nor did her assistant. Neither of them took much interest in exactly what I was studying. Stoyan, when I looked at the little picture of Cybele…” My words died away as he completed the last few pieces of the puzzle. He’d been right. The tiny shapes formed a spreading tree bearing flowers and fruit at the same time, with all sorts of creatures flying and roosting and foraging around the roots. A tree with a heart, for that was the way its sturdy trunk looked, and a crown of verdant foliage. “How was it you saw that so quickly,” I asked him, “and I spent days thinking about it and getting nowhere?”

“Perhaps you were looking for a more complex solution. A simple man sees a simple answer.”

“Simple? You? I doubt that.”

“You did not finish what you were saying.” He regarded me gravely. “When you found this image of the old goddess, something happened.”

“I heard a voice. Not Tati’s; another voice, a deep one. It was like a command: ‘I am the beginning. Make me whole.’ There was another girl in the library, and she didn’t seem to have heard it, nor did she see Tati when she appeared and disappeared. I wonder if you’d be able to see her?”

“I do not know. Paula, your past must make you a perfect choice to be entrusted with such a secret. I am unsurprised that clues have been laid for you to follow. A scholar by nature and training, and already a visitor to this kingdom of the shadows…. So someone has chosen you to be the holder of knowledge. This troubles me. I know you wish to visit Kyria Irene’s library in the morning. I am not content to wait for you outside. Not this time.”

“That won’t work anyway,” I said, impressed by his insight. “I want to show you the manuscript. Perhaps there’s a way around Irene’s rule. Let me think about it.”

“Should you speak of these manifestations to Master Teodor? He fears attack by commercial rivals. He is unaware that other, more unusual forces are also at work.”

“It’s best that he doesn’t know,” I said. “We did tell him the truth about Tati, about why she was gone when he came home that winter, but not all of it. Not that she and Jena had met the Night People and…Well, it’s a long story. I’ll tell you someday. If Father knew that Tati had been here and that I might have a quest to fulfill, he’d probably send me straight home. He doesn’t realize I can deal with these things.”

“I believe you,” said Stoyan. “It seems you have grown up with a knowledge of the uncanny and have less fear of it than most folk might. It is the more worldly dangers that give me pause.”

“I thought you were going to teach me unarmed combat.” I managed a smile.

“The same as the reading: enough to get you started,” he said. “It cannot be sufficient to allay my fears for you. Not so quickly.”

“You don’t need to worry about me, Stoyan.”

“You are a woman of spirited views, of independence and courage. I wish I could say you are right. But how can I do that when you wake suddenly and I hear terror in your voice? It cuts me to the quick that I cannot be there by your side in your dreams to lead you to safety.”

I could think of absolutely nothing to say. His last remark had been deeply personal and seemed quite inappropriate from a hired guard. My cheeks were hot, and I was glad the dim light concealed this from my companion. Eventually I said, “They’re only dreams.” Perhaps I had misunderstood what he meant. After my earlier blunder, I was probably overreacting.

“My mother would say a dream is the key that unlocks the mysteries of the waking world.”

“You seem remarkably ready to accept the eldritch and supernatural,” I told him, steering the conversation away from the perilous track that seemed to be opening up with alarming frequency tonight. “You don’t seem at all shocked by what I’ve told you. Unless you’re just humoring me.”

“I would not do that. I respect you.”

“Does this openness come from your mother? At home, the mountain people distrust and fear the Other Kingdom. They hang talismans on the trees and erect crucifixes to keep out not just the devil’s minions but fairies and dwarves and Night People as well. It’s not that they don’t believe. It’s more that they hope those forces will set a wide berth around them and their loved ones.”

“My mother’s mother was a znaharka, a…What is the word? A wisewoman, one who dabbled in spells and cures. She taught us respect for what is beyond the commonplace; she imparted a love for the deep and wise truths of the earth. That is how I know of Cybele. There is not so much difference, I believe, between the kind of beings you spoke of, the denizens of your Other Kingdom, and a deity such as the bee goddess.”

“I want to study that second page more closely tomorrow, the one with Cybele’s picture on it. Maybe there are more clues there. I think it’s important that we work them out before the supper.” A yawn overtook me. I looked out over the rooftops and thought I could see a faint lightening of the sky. “That’s if either of us can stay awake,” I added.

“You have time to sleep a little before your father rises,” said Stoyan. “What shall we do with this small work of art? Should we preserve it?”

I looked down at the little tray with its neat image in the sand, the squiggly lines that had resolved themselves into a pattern of trunk and branches, the parts I had thought only blobs and smears that were now, quite obviously, leaves, buds, birds, creatures. I wondered if too much learning had blinded me to what was right and true. “I don’t think that’s practical,” I told him. “But we should try to remember it. There has to be a reason we were shown this.”

“I will study it further before dawn, commit it to memory.”

“You should sleep, Stoyan. I’ve kept you up half the night.”

“Do not concern yourself. You must rest. You have a difficult task ahead of you.”

“You mean trying to find clues that may not exist?” I got up, hugging the cloak around me and wondering if I dared try to sleep. The nightmare was not far away.

“I mean teaching a farm boy his letters. I think I will have more success as a tutor than you.”

“Making a scholarly girl into a fearsome warrior? I doubt it. Stoyan, since you are staying up, would you mind not dousing the lantern for a while?”

“I will be here, just by the outer doorway. I will place the light where you can see it from your pallet. Sleep well, Paula. Your dreams will be good ones now. I know it.”

I lay on my bed watching him through the half-closed door. The lantern light warmed his broad features and gave a glint to the long-lashed yellow eyes. His dark hair fell forward, tangling over his shoulders as he sat cross-legged with the sand tray on his lap. Once or twice he took his gaze off the little tree and glanced toward me, then turned his attention back to the task. His concentration was exemplary. I’d have him writing his name before he knew it. But that might be as far as it went, because in one month’s time, when the Stea de Mare was due for her next trip to Constana, we would part ways and I’d never see Stoyan again.

As I fell asleep, it came to me that this would be like discovering a new book, a compelling one full of surprises, and then, just when I was becoming absorbed in the story, having it snatched away half read.

When I woke, I found I had slept right through the morning call to prayer, and I could not recall a single dream.

Maria had a stomach upset. It seemed unlikely she would be sufficiently recovered by evening to accompany us to Barsam’s house. Anticipating the morning inspection, Father was edgy and distracted. I could not attend the supper without a chaperone. Claudia would be looking after Maria. Stoyan did not want me to stay at the han at night without him, nor did he want Father to go to the blue house without his guard to protect him. They were on the verge of a full-scale argument when I interrupted with what seemed the obvious solution.

“I think Irene would come as my chaperone,” I said. “She’s highly respected in the city, she’s a friend, and she already knows about Cybele’s Gift and the supper, so there’s no problem with confidentiality. And if she brings Murat, we’ll have two bodyguards. Shall I ask her?”

Father nodded agreement, his mind clearly elsewhere. He had not told me where he had hidden the papers concerning Cybele’s Gift, but I knew him well enough to be quite sure they would not be found. All the same, the prospect of the Mufti’s men performing a search of our private quarters was troubling.

They arrived while I was still eating breakfast. In addition to several men I took from their robes and hats to be imams, prayer leaders, there was a small force of Janissaries. I remembered Irene’s comment on the nature of the visits the Sheikh-ul-Islam was carrying out and began to worry about Father. Giacomo was already down in the courtyard, welcoming the delegation.

“The Janissaries are only for show,” Father muttered as he put on his hat in readiness to meet the visitors. “To intimidate us into providing whatever the Mufti’s after. Don’t look so worried, Paula. Leave me to deal with this. I’m used to providing just enough information to satisfy without revealing what I don’t want known. They’ll be talking to Giacomo first. Stoyan, slip out with Paula as soon as they’ve gone inside.”

It had rained overnight. Stoyan and I walked to Irene’s house between showers, and we talked very little on the way. There was a constraint between us this morning. Each of us had made certain remarks last night that fell outside the boundaries of convention. He was quiet and remote now, I reasoned, because he was regretting allowing that to happen.

“You must be tired, Stoyan,” I observed as the wall of Irene’s house came into view down the street.

“Not so weary that I cannot fulfill my duties, kyria.”

I sighed. He was right back into mistress and servant mode. “That’s not what I meant,” I said, but probably he was wise. Mistress and servant was what we were, officially, and it would be a lot easier to keep things that way. Maybe, once tomorrow’s supper was over, I would have no more nightmares. Maybe I wouldn’t need a friend to hold my hand in the middle of the night and listen as if he understood everything.

Some time later, I sat with Irene overlooking her rain-soaked garden, sipping a cold drink. As soon as I had mentioned Maria’s illness, my hostess had offered to chaperone me at the supper, which had saved me from having to ask her. She expressed the view that, at the very least, she could prevent Duarte Aguiar from spoiling my evening with his pestering. We made arrangements to get to the blue house—she and Murat would meet us at the han, from where we would all go on together. Now I was making a more awkward request.

“I would like to work here on the colonnade today, if you agree. It would mean bringing out the box of papers I have been studying. The light is better here. I will use a table, of course, and keep everything clean and dry.”

Irene saw through it instantly. “And you can remain somewhat closer to your young man,” she observed with lifted brows. Stoyan was standing not far from us.

“My guard,” I corrected. “That is part of the reason for my request, yes. Father was expecting the Mufti’s men this morning—he thanks you for the warning, by the way. He’s sensitive about my safety.”

“Paula.” Irene lowered her voice. “You’d do well to avoid getting too close to this guard of yours.”

I was so taken aback I could find nothing to say.

“You have not noticed the way he looks at you?” Irene murmured.

“It’s Stoyan’s job to look after me,” I told her. “I have complete faith in him. Are you questioning my choice of guard?”

“Not at all, Paula, only what might arise from it. You are young. This is a fine specimen of manhood, an unpolished gem, one might say. But not for you. I see a certain affinity between you. I hear how quickly you spring to his defense. You know he used to work for Salem bin Afazi, don’t you? The merchant who was done to death in the street not long ago?”

“Salem was a friend of my father’s. We know all about it. The murder happened while Stoyan was away. He was devastated when he returned to find his employer dead.”

“You discuss such personal matters with him?”

I was becoming acutely aware of Stoyan, standing a short distance along the colonnade. I judged he was not quite out of earshot. His face was turned away from us. “Why not?” I asked in an undertone.

“Again you spring to his defense. He is not your equal, Paula, and never can be. Ask yourself if such a man would ever be able to conduct a conversation with you about books or music or philosophy. Would he ever be able to share with you the pursuits you love, the ideas you are so passionate about? Besides, how much can you know about him on so brief an acquaintance? Has it occurred to you that his absence at the time of his employer’s death might have been more than coincidence? If, let us say, a rival had wished to remove Salem bin Afazi from the scene, he would only have needed to offer a respectable sum to this large young man to ensure he would be far away from his master’s side at the critical moment.”

I was shocked. “I’m certain that’s not how it was. I mean, maybe it’s true about a rival being responsible for what happened to Salem. But Stoyan would never risk his employer’s safety for money. We know him well enough by now to be quite sure of that.”

“Really? I imagine his family back home, wherever that is, must be impoverished. There’s another matter of concern, Paula. I have heard of your guard’s involvement in certain unsavory dealings prior to his time with Salem bin Afazi. Street fighting and other such activities.”

“He has reasons for being here, and reasons for needing funds,” I said a little defensively. Her comments bothered me. It was true that, in terms of our background, there was a yawning gulf between Stoyan and me. But there was no need for her to point it out, especially not within his hearing. Besides, there was nothing going on between us.

“And he has confided these reasons to you.” Her voice was soft.

I wasn’t going to let her probe any further. “Irene, I know you must be very busy. And I should get on with some work.”

“I see my criticism of your watchdog hurts you,” Irene said quietly. “I’m sorry. You are young, and young girls can be swayed by the longings of the heart, or by excess sympathy for those who seem in trouble, or by the all-too-powerful yearnings of the body. Before she knows it, a young woman can find herself swept into very deep waters.”

Stoyan had moved slightly farther away and was busy adjusting the weapon he carried on his back. His mouth was set in a grim line.

“You don’t need to warn me,” I said. “I’m not one of those gullible types. Besides, I’m in Istanbul to assist my father. I’ve no plans to fall in love.”

Irene smiled. “No, I suppose your first love will always be scholarship. How frustrating for you that we women are denied so many opportunities. If you had been a boy, perhaps you might have been a noted scholar, a teacher, a writer. As it is, I imagine that although your father allows you considerable freedom, he will eventually expect you to marry some worthy man and settle down to produce a batch of children. Such a waste of your gifts.” She sounded unusually passionate, as if this genuinely angered her.

“It’s not quite like that,” I said, feeling I must defend my father. “Father has been delighted to see two of my sisters happily married, of course. But he knows I want to become a trader specializing in books. I suppose he would like me to marry as well. My sisters often tease me about that. They say that if I select a husband, it will be on the basis of how many languages he can read or his ability to sustain an argument on obscure points of philosophy. In fact, I am coming to the conclusion that a woman cannot succeed in both—I mean, conducting some kind of career of her own as well as being a wife and mother. My sister Jena is an exception, but then, she married an unusual man. There are no others like Costi.”

Irene smiled. “It’s my belief that a strong-minded and able young woman needs no husband, only the courage of her own convictions,” she said. “There are hundreds of girls who can perform the role of wives and mothers. There are only a few with the capacity to rise above that and do the extraordinary. You could be one of those, Paula. Give it some thought. Now I will ask Ariadne to fetch your manuscripts. You may work here. Just be careful the wind does not carry the papers into the garden. Everything’s wet today.”

Stoyan wasn’t happy. Whatever he had overheard had caused him to close in on himself completely. I gestured to him to come over and sit by me at the table, but he was slow to respond. Our hostess had moved away along the colonnade and was speaking to a group of women gathered there.

“Please, Stoyan,” I murmured.

With visible reluctance, he squatted down beside me, peering at the fragment.

“This is the goddess with her bees.” I showed him the tiny image. “I do think she looks a little like a tree, with her hair as foliage.”

Stoyan spoke in a sharp whisper. “I am out of place here. I am a guard, not a scholar.”

“Never mind that,” I whispered back. “Tell me what you can see.”

“Pictures, kyria. And words I cannot read. You do not require me here to tell you what you can see for yourself.”

“I can’t read this either. It’s in Persian. Look closely. I want to know if you notice anything unusual.” When he made no comment, I added, “I’m sorry if she upset you. I can’t do this without you, Stoyan.”

While he examined the ornately decorated pages, I got out my writing materials and made another copy of the hidden symbols, this time on a loose sheet of paper that I had divided up into thirty squares. I did not try to put them in the shape of the tree, only to copy each faithfully. Back at the han, I would cut the sheet up and assemble the pieces to form a more lasting version of our completed puzzle. I needed the sand tray for Stoyan’s writing lessons. I was determined to make him realize he was capable of learning. He was bitter and angry about his lack of scholarship. There was enough sadness in his life. No point in adding to it when the solution was so easy.

Stoyan’s attention had been taken by the miniatures on the other fragment, the one I had found first. “This looks like a game of combat,” he whispered to me, indicating one of the images. “This being, who seems part man, part jackal, tosses the other, with his horselike head, over his shoulder and onto the ground. These others—men in women’s clothing?—applaud the bout. I think this figure holds a circlet of leaves to crown the victor.”

“Cybele’s spring ritual,” I murmured. “They enacted it every year when her lover was reborn. They used to…Well, never mind the details.”

“If you look closely, you can see similar forms in the border—look here and here.”

The border was intricate. Its scrolls and twists and spirals embellished not only the little squares and triangles that made up the tree puzzle, but also images of men and animals. The colors were vivid: rich strong blue, vibrant red, a touch of gold leaf here and there, a deep olive green. “In this picture,” Stoyan said, “a woman converses with a cat. The creature has one blue and one yellow eye. In the next is a hawk-headed man swinging from a rope and a dog-faced one waiting to catch him.”

“Maybe the spring ritual involves a series of tests.” I peered at the tiny image. “You know, strength, agility, and wit or something like that.”

“I wonder if—”

The words seemed to freeze on Stoyan’s lips. When I glanced at him, he was staring at me with such horror that I looked over my shoulder to see if a monster had suddenly appeared. Irene and most of her group had gone inside the house, leaving only two women sitting farther along the colonnade quietly reading. Stoyan had turned ghostly white, his eyes like saucers.

“Wh—” I began, and a moment later had the sensation of floating out of my body, as if in a dream, so that I was looking down on my own seated figure and that of my companion from some point in the air above myself. But the person on the chair was not Paula in her demure gown and headscarf. It was a woman clad all in black, seated exactly where I had been a moment ago and fixing her lovely violet-blue eyes on Stoyan. Her embroidery trailed across her knees. On its surface, girls danced in a line. The fourth was slim and pale with wavy brown hair and spectacles on a chain around her neck: myself, executed in neat stitches. As for the real Paula, I was no longer part of the world of Irene’s house but in some other realm, held separate until Tati had said or done whatever it was she needed to.

“Where’s Paula?” Stoyan’s voice was a strangled whisper. “What have you done with her?” He was reaching for the knife at his belt. “Answer me!”

Frozen, suspended, I could not speak. I could not tell him to be calm and wait.

“Listen to me!” my sister said. As she spoke, Stoyan whipped the knife out of its sheath and stood up, blade ready to strike. It was one of the worst moments of my life. Every part of me was screaming to intervene, to stop him from doing something terrible, to warn Tati…. And yet I knew I could not. The powerful charm that held me immobile would not be released until this had unfolded in its own way. Along the colonnade, the two women now stood frozen, staring. One had her book clutched defensively to her chest.

“What is this?” Stoyan hissed. His voice shook, but he held the weapon perfectly steady. “What do you want with us?”

“You have to listen, Stoyan,” said Tati, and she slipped the veil from her face so he could see that she was young and beautiful and as pale as frost on the hawthorn. “I can’t stay long and I’m not allowed to talk to Paula, not properly; it’s one of the rules. Each of us has a quest to fulfill, you and Paula and I. If you succeed, you will earn three rewards: one for courage, one for steadfastness, one for openness. Earn them well. Use them well. And please keep my sister safe.”

“Your—” Stoyan began, lowering the knife slightly, and a moment later I felt myself descending, becoming flesh and blood again, and there I was sitting at the table, looking up into his face and trying to still my trembling hands.

“I…I saw her,” I stammered. “I could hear her. But I was somewhere else…. Stoyan, sit down, you look as if you’re about to faint.”

“Paula!” He reached out a hand, touched my arm, my hair. He was as shocked as I was. “You are safe, unhurt? By all the saints…I do not know what to say.” He sheathed the knife, glancing along the colonnade at the women, who were now conferring with apparent urgency. I imagined them running to Irene or to Murat and telling a tale of how my bodyguard had been waving weapons around on the premises. I didn’t know exactly what they’d seen, but I’d need to reassure them or this could become very unpleasant.

“I’m sorry,” I called, getting to my feet. My legs would scarcely hold me. “My guard thought he heard an intruder in the garden. Please don’t be alarmed.”

The women did not look convinced.

“Are you sure you are safe, kyria?” one of them asked in halting Greek. “It seemed…” She glanced at Stoyan. “I thought the young man meant to harm you. That was the way it looked. Should I call Kyria Irene?”

Stoyan gathered himself, bowed respectfully, and called something to them in Turkish, his tone placatory.

“Really, we’re fine,” I added. As the women seated themselves once more, I lowered my voice. “Stoyan, that was my sister,” I told him. “Tatiana. I thought you were going to kill her.” Something occurred to me; something odd. “What language was she speaking?” I asked. I had understood her and so, it seemed, had Stoyan. Since Tati had never learned Greek, that ruled out the only tongue Stoyan and I had in common. Had she spoken in the strange language of the Other Kingdom, universally understood yet so ephemeral we could never remember it in our own world? It shocked me to recognize how far my eldest sister had drifted away from her old life.

“That doesn’t matter, Paula. We should leave right away. This is dangerous. What if you had not come back? If these forces draw you into another world, a realm beyond the earthly and human, I cannot follow you there.”

“It sounded as if Tati expected you to do just that. She was giving you a mission to accomplish. You are involved whether you like it or not. The fact that you could see her and those women couldn’t proves it. If they’d noticed me disappearing and being replaced by someone completely different, they certainly wouldn’t still be sitting along there.”

“I have a mission: protecting you while you are here in Istanbul. My instructions do not extend to dealing with manifestations like this. Against such a threat, I have no weapons.”

“I think Tati was saying you do. Courage, steadfastness, and openness. Those are the weapons you need.”

“For what? Why does this sister not tell us plainly what is required of us?”

I thought of Drǎgua, the witch of the wood. “She may not know,” I said. “The folk of the Other Kingdom never play simple games. If she could meet us properly and explain it clearly, she would have no need to appear and disappear or to remove me while she spoke to you. Perhaps she’s not very good at these manifestations yet. I mean, six years ago she was an ordinary human girl like me. But the longer she stays in that other world, the more like its inhabitants she becomes. That’s why her sweetheart, Sorrow, can never come back—he was taken by the Night People when he was only about ten and now he’s…different. The quest they set for him was extremely difficult. That’s the way these things work: The greater the reward to be won at the end, the harder the mission. Quests can win people happiness, peace, knowledge. The stakes are high, because these missions affect many lives—they can alter the course of history. In the process, people can get badly hurt. They can die.”

“You cannot be saying that our paths are set down for us by these beings?” Stoyan sounded deeply troubled. “They sound capricious. I cannot believe my destiny is in the hands of such wayward creatures. What of God? Or, indeed, of gods in general, Cybele included? Do these forces work together, or do they wage ceaseless wars, with human souls as the price?”

“I can’t answer that. All I know is that we have our own quest, you and I. And Tati. I don’t know how it all fits together. Maybe it won’t make sense until the end.”

“What if we will not play this game?”

I shivered. “When it happened to our family before, we would have lost everything if Jena hadn’t played, and played well. I don’t know where this is leading us, Stoyan. But I must go on. I can’t ignore Tati. She’s my big sister.”

“Paula,” said Stoyan, a new note in his voice. He was looking at the miniature of Cybele, his eyes narrowed.

“What?”

“See there,” he murmured, pointing. “Your goddess bears some writing on her skin.”

The squat figure stared out with her enigmatic smile and her blank eyes, hands on hips, legs crossed beneath her generous body. Stoyan was right. If I looked very closely through my spectacles, I could just make out that what had seemed to be a vine or cord flowing across her belly and around her hip was in fact a stream of minuscule writing.

“I wonder what it says,” I murmured. “I don’t recognize the style of letters at all. It must be something very old. Or a code of some kind. This is so frustrating! Bits of clues, half signs, hints and suggestions, but nothing to tie it all together.”

“She said—your sister—that she could not explain it to you. Why would that be, Paula?”

“It’s typical of the Other Kingdom. A witch used a spell of silence on our second cousin Costi a few years ago. It was pretty cruel. It meant he couldn’t explain to Jena who he really was. By the time he got his voice back, they were so angry with each other they weren’t talking anyway. It did all get sorted out eventually—they’re husband and wife now. There’s always a reason for the use of these charms.”

“What reason could there be for allowing your sister to speak to me but not to you, Paula?”

“I could think of a few. To show you that you are part of all this, that you can’t hide behind your status as a hired guard. To make my quest harder for me and Tati’s for her. The folk of the Other Kingdom make us suffer so we learn our lesson better. Whatever lesson it is. I hope I find that out soon, because I hate it when I can’t make sense of things.”

“How long do you wish to stay here? The Mufti’s party may be finished at the han by now.” Stoyan was looking seriously unsettled; I could see he was longing to leave.

“We need to stay a little longer at least. Irene would think it impolite if we rushed off, and if those women tell her you were waving knives around, we might face some awkward questions. Stoyan, I wonder if Irene could translate that tiny writing?”

“You do not believe this may be in some way secret?” Stoyan offered this with diffidence.

“The manuscript does belong to Irene,” I pointed out. “Now that she’s told me she knows about Cybele’s Gift, there seems no risk in asking her. I won’t mention the vanishing inscription—‘Find the heart’ and so on. I think that probably is something I’m not supposed to share with anyone.”

“You shared it with me.”

“That’s different,” I said.

I waited until Irene came out to suggest coffee before showing her the manuscript. As soon as Irene appeared, Stoyan moved down into the garden, where the rain had eased off again. He stationed himself just far enough away so he would not be able to overhear our conversation. My hostess bent over the table, dark eyes sharp with interest as she examined the manuscript. I heard her suck in her breath.

“Astonishing,” she murmured, “that such a piece was in my collection and I did not know…. You found this quite by chance in one of the boxes?”

“That’s right.” It was clear from her expression that she had never seen this before. “I have a strong feeling that it’s an image of Cybele. But of course I can’t translate the words, neither this part on the figure nor the main text of the manuscript. I was hoping you might be able to help.”

“I do not recognize this alphabet at all, Paula.” Irene moved her graceful fingers over the miniature, not quite touching the band of tiny letters. “But I can translate the main text for you, of course. And the name of your earth goddess is certainly here. Let me see….”

It was an account of the death of Cybele’s lover, Attis, a tale full of high emotion. Irene’s voice quivered as she rendered it, as if the scenes of blood and sorrow were unfolding right before her eyes. I’d been right about the other sheet, with the pictures of strange games. It concerned the goddess’s spring ritual, held to celebrate the rebirth of this lost lover. Just before the writer described the actual details of the ceremony, Irene reached the end of the fragment.

“Fascinating!” my hostess exclaimed. “What a remarkable find, Paula! And how extraordinary that you were the one to stumble on this when your father is on the brink of acquiring this artifact…. I cannot believe it.”

I could hardly point out that I was sure forces from the Other Kingdom were putting clues in my path. “Yes, it is quite surprising,” I said. “To tell you the truth, I had been hoping there might be some information about Cybele here, something that could come in useful. I’m happy that I found this.”

“Thank you for doing so—I must make cataloging the rest of these papers a priority, I can see. If you remain in Istanbul a little, maybe you would assist me.”

“I’d be happy to do so.” Flattering as this was, it was starting to look unlikely that I’d have the opportunity. Whatever quest the powers of the Other Kingdom wanted me to complete, I doubted very much that it would involve cataloging.

Over coffee, Irene questioned me on what I planned to wear to the supper and how I would dress my hair—she suggested putting it up so I would look older. I found it difficult to show interest in such matters. Stoyan was looking worried, and I was feeling confused. Tati’s words to Stoyan had suggested urgency; the supper was tonight. And still I couldn’t put the pieces together. I believed in the mission. I believed we had a task to accomplish. I just hoped it wouldn’t be too much longer before I worked out what it was.

It was nearly time for the midday call to prayer when we got back to the han, and the Mufti’s party was long gone. It seemed they had not discovered anything of interest, though their search had been extremely thorough. Father and Stoyan spent a good part of the afternoon restoring order in the chamber where our remaining cargo was stored, while I tidied up the living quarters, which had been turned upside down. It looked as if even my storage chest had been searched. I did not like the thought of those guards handling my clothing and my little personal things. Nothing seemed to be missing. Father did not say where he had hidden his papers, but they were safe. He had been a merchant for many years and knew how these things were done.

The invitation to the blue house had said we should be there as soon as convenient after the evening call to prayer. Timing was everything. To arrive early was impolite. To be late was to give the other merchants an advantage, for whoever reached Barsam’s house first might gain a brief opportunity to speak with the Armenian in confidence. As it happened, all the merchants had the same idea, so we arrived en masse. The exception was Duarte da Costa Aguiar, who, with his usual flair, had managed to get there before anyone else. He was seated cross-legged on a cushion in the courtyard, chatting with our host to the accompaniment of murmuring fountains. Lanterns cast a warm light over the stone pillars and soft greenery of the enclosed space. Discreet servants, all male, moved about silently. There had been armed guards outside the gates. Before they had let us in, we had been required to answer a set of questions to prove our identity.

Barsam rose to greet us. He was wearing an embroidered caftan of pearly gray silk; his hair and beard matched the fabric. When my father introduced me in Greek, the Armenian murmured a greeting in the same tongue. I responded courteously, thanking him for his hospitality. The moment Barsam turned to speak to Irene, Duarte took my hand, bowed over it, then with a look in his eyes that was plain mischievous drew me away from the group of folk exchanging pleasantries.

“In this color,” he said, keeping his voice down, “you resemble a rare butterfly, Mistress Paula. Or a tempting fruit, perhaps, rich red on the outside, palest cream within.”

I struggled for a reply. If this was the man who had sent that horrible threatening letter to Antonio, I was not sure I wanted to speak to him at all. And yet his outrageous flattery made me want to smile. “I should thank you for this,” I said coolly, adjusting the crimson veil. The fringe of delicate shell disks tinkled across my brow. Now I wondered if wearing it had been a mistake.

Duarte was clad in plain clothing of superior quality: trousers in a deep blue, a pale linen shirt that contrasted dramatically with his tanned skin and ink-dark hair, and a tunic of blue-gray linen with bone fastenings. His belt was the brightest note, a strip of fabric woven in exotic colors.

“It seemed a rather individual way to compensate me for the loss of my own scarf,” I added. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Stoyan watching us. He was standing guard at one side of the courtyard as the supper guests mingled. The scar on his cheek was especially noticeable tonight; I thought he had his teeth clenched. On the other side stood Murat, impassive as always, his blue eyes watchful. I looked back at Duarte, who had reached into his belt to tweak up a corner of something red that was tucked beneath it.

“Isn’t this fun?” the Portuguese murmured. “You’re wearing mine and I’m wearing yours.”

He certainly had a talent for the inappropriate. “Are you so superstitious, Senhor Aguiar, that you actually believe my scarf is lucky?” I asked him.

The devastating grin spread across his lean features. “Quite the opposite, Mistress Paula. I have no time for the fears and fantasies that beset so many seafaring men, the charms and amulets borne to ward off evil forces, the songs and tales of mermaids and monsters lurking in the deep. I carry this to remind me that I have something to prove.”

“Oh? And what is that?” I noticed Father looking at me, his expression unreadable. He would not order me to stop speaking to Duarte. After all, I had offered to use my feminine charms to aid our mission if I could. But he was keeping an eye on me, ready to get me out of trouble if I needed him.

“That, with sufficient work on my part, you might begin to see that I am not the out-and-out rogue folk love to paint me,” Duarte said. “Given time, I think you and I could become friends.”

He must be joking. “Recent events suggest to me that such a development is not possible,” I said. Across the courtyard, Irene, eye-catching even in her sedate dark blue, had most of the other merchants gathered around her. She lifted her brows at me, evidently displeased that I was not heeding her warnings about Duarte. Trapped as she was by her admirers, she could not fulfill her duty as a chaperone. “I could not befriend a man who gets what he wants by threats.”

“Threats? Me?” His brows went up. “Mistress Paula, I think you’ve been listening to gossip again. My methods may not always be orthodox, but they are quite gentlemanly on the whole. Violence is a last resort. And it is generally not necessary to threaten. I am a more subtle man than that.”

I scrutinized his features, trying to see past their charm and work out whether he was playing games again. “I’m not sure I believe you,” I said. “It is hardly subtle to draw the wives and children of trading rivals into danger.” Perhaps I should have kept my mouth shut, but I was angry on Antonio’s behalf and on behalf of all honest merchants. And on my own. I felt a strong inclination to like this man, but if what my father suspected was true, I could not allow myself to give in to it.

“I cannot imagine what folk have been telling you, Mistress Paula. Ah—I believe we are being summoned indoors. I feel your watchdog’s awful glare on me. I fear he does not trust me.”

“Stoyan is doing his job. I had some difficulty persuading my father that I would be safe here.” I made to turn away.

“Wait,” Duarte said, his tone suddenly serious. “When you speak of threats, what do you mean? Threats to you personally?”

For the first time, I began to wonder if he did not know about the reason Antonio had pulled out of the bidding.

“Someone sent an unpleasant note to one of the other bidders,” I said. “That’s as much as I’m prepared to say. If you were not responsible, I apologize. If you were, I don’t want to talk to you. I can’t be plainer about it than that.”

“I see.” Duarte was not smiling now. “This is a dangerous business, Mistress Paula. For all of us, I believe.”

“I don’t suppose anyone would threaten you, senhor. Folk appear to be in awe of you. Or in fear.”

Duarte shrugged. “Let people believe what they will of me. What do I care for them? But you are an exception. I hope in time I may earn your good opinion. Shall we go in?” He was ushering me ahead of him toward an arched doorway into the house. As we moved forward, he whispered in my ear, “Please call me Duarte. The other thing makes me feel so elderly.”

I attempted a quelling look, designed to freeze his inappropriate familiarity. His lips twitched and a dimple appeared at each corner of his mouth. I was unable to prevent myself from smiling. “I cannot do as you ask,” I murmured. “It would shock everyone at this supper and embarrass my father.”

In a generously spaced chamber inside the house, Barsam’s guests were settling on the floor around a low table. The walls were tiled in blue and white, and a blue cloth with colored borders had been laid over the table. If our host was married, there was no sign of his wife—Irene and I were the only women present. My father had been waiting for me to come in and indicated a place beside him. Irene sat on my other side, and Duarte, with an eloquent shrug, settled himself a distance away, between Alonso di Parma and a man in a skullcap. Stoyan stood close behind Father and me. Murat had not come inside.

Servants brought bowls of scented water for us to wash our hands and immaculate embroidered towels for drying. Various dishes were then placed before us to share: goulash, fragrant rice, cucumbers with mint and yogurt. Stoyan did not eat.

“Alonso,” my father said after a while, “I am a little surprised to see you here. I had thought your interest lay more in textiles and carpets.” It seemed tonight’s conversation would be in Greek, which suited me, as it meant I could follow the proceedings.

“I surprise myself.” If deviousness could be given a voice, it would sound just like the Venetian merchant with whom I had struck my first Istanbul deal. “Of course, it is less the item to be displayed that has brought me here tonight and more the prospect of meeting you and your delightful daughter once more. You’ve been working hard, Teodor. You should not overstretch yourself; not at your age.”

I opened my mouth to deliver a withering response. Irene gave me a subtle nudge, and I restrained myself.

“Overstretch?” Father did not sound in the least put out. “I’ve been in the business too long to make such a basic error of judgment. When you are a little older, you will begin to get an understanding of such matters, I suppose.”

“Barsam, we thank you for your hospitality,” said Enzo of Naples. “I know you must be aware of how eager we are to view the artifact at last. Can you tell us a little more about it? There has been much discussion of how it was acquired and from whom.”

“We do understand,” put in Duarte smoothly, “that such details may be commercially sensitive. It is up to our host how much he chooses to divulge.”

There was a silence, which I interpreted as the merchants at the table refusing to acknowledge the Portuguese as an equal in the field of mercantile transactions.

“Of course,” someone said delicately, “each of us will have performed his own investigations into the nature and history of Cybele’s Gift.” There was a collective release of breath, almost a sigh, as the item was named. “I am interested to discover if the information you possess, Master Barsam, supports or contradicts the scant knowledge we have of the piece.”

“My guests, please enjoy your meal,” said Barsam in softly courteous tones. “Time for this when all have eaten sufficiently. I welcome you to my modest dwelling.” Out in the courtyard, someone began to play music, a plaintive tune on a reed instrument punctuated by the clash of small cymbals. The timing was impeccable; it was almost as if Barsam had planned it thus.

“We lack patience,” my father observed. “My apologies, Master Barsam. Your hospitality is very fine. I do appreciate your extending the invitation to include my daughter, who, as you may know, is in Istanbul as my assistant.”

“You have no sons, Master Teodor?” That was Duarte. “Nobody to carry on your trading business?”

“I was blessed with girls, senhor. The five of them possess sufficient funds of wit, beauty, and scholarship to make any father happy. I am fortunate enough to have three grandchildren as well, two of them boys. As it happens, I am in partnership with my son-in-law.”

“You are blessed indeed, Master Teodor,” said our host. “As fathers, we know it matters not if our children and our children’s children become warriors or merchants, dervishes or administrators. We wish for them only good health and good fortune, love of family, respect for their ruler, and devotion to their God. Whatever our faith, whatever our origins, we are united in this.”

There was a general murmur of acknowledgment.

“Irene,” I whispered.

“Yes, Paula?”

“They will let us see Cybele’s Gift, won’t they?” I could barely eat; my stomach was churning with nerves. The presence of Duarte just along the table, glancing mischievously in my direction from time to time, did nothing to calm me.

“Don’t worry so, Paula. You’re giving yourself a permanent frown. Have a little more of the goulash; it is very good.”

The men were talking about silk carpets now. My mind drifted from Tati to Stoyan to Duarte…. I was somewhat ashamed to realize the pirate’s compliments had pleased me. The admiration of such an outrageously good-looking man was unsettling. I did have a strong instinct to like him despite all the bad things I had heard about him. Such a response could only make things complicated. I pondered this as I picked at my meal.

Some time later, I snapped back to the present when Barsam mentioned Cybele.

“…an Anatolian scholar,” the Armenian was saying. “He told me the piece was being conveyed toward Samarkand by a man who almost certainly did not appreciate its rarity. I then set out to pursue the caravan to which this traveler had attached himself, catching up with it halfway to Tabriz. I was able to secure Cybele’s Gift with a payment in…Well, let us not go into details. I know the piece is genuine. It has been examined and valued in strictest confidence by an expert on religious antiquities. It is of the correct age and style, and the markings it bears are appropriate only to that particular region and period. I believe one glimpse of the artifact will convince you of its authenticity.”

I hoped we would get more than a glimpse. I was intending to read the inscription—or at least remember it so I could have it translated in due course—and find out what it was Cybele had said before she left the world forever. Those words were the element that made Cybele’s Gift so much desired; they created the belief that the piece would confer lifelong good fortune on its holder.

“Valued,” echoed my father. “I am intrigued to know how this expert went about setting a value on a unique piece of such antiquity.”

“If this is the real Cybele’s Gift,” put in Duarte, “I would say it is beyond measuring in terms of silver or gold.”

“Nonetheless,” said Alonso di Parma, “it would be pointless to pretend we are here tonight for any other purpose than to bid for the piece, and I imagine each of us has offered a price that can indeed be measured in just those terms.”

“I stand by my comment,” Duarte said quietly. “Whatever value a merchant may place on this particular piece, it cannot be treated in the same way as a silk carpet or a piece of fine silverware. This is a symbol of genuine faith. And faith cannot be bought and sold.”

It was an astonishing speech for such a man to make. I wanted to ask him what he meant but felt awkward in the company of the others, whose expressions, where not carefully masked, were cynical.

“That’s pretentious claptrap,” said one of the merchants. “This is a primitive artifact, Senhor Aguiar. It’s not the same as trying to sell a scroll dictated by the Prophet or the thighbone of a Christian saint. Nobody still believes in this earth goddess—she’s a figure of ancient mythology. Of course, there’s the superstition attached to this piece; we all know about that. I’m in no doubt my buyer wants it not for its rarity but because he believes it will ensure generations of prosperity for him and his. We could probably all say the same.”

“What exactly is your point, Senhor Aguiar?” Father sounded calm and assured. “I gather you are present as a bidder. And yet you say the item should not be traded. This makes no sense to me.”

“Let us just say that should I be the successful bidder, my intentions for Cybele’s Gift would not be the same as your own or those of our friends here.” Duarte gestured to encompass everyone at the table. “Each of you has come here with a potential buyer in mind, I imagine. My own role is somewhat different. It might be said that I am present on behalf of the original custodian of the piece. It is for that party that I intend to acquire the artifact.”

“Original custodian? What does that mean?” said Enzo of Naples. “The piece is offered for legitimate sale; nobody has a claim to prior ownership. Unless there’s something Barsam hasn’t told us.” He glanced suspiciously at our host, who shook his head with a grave smile. “Besides,” the Neapolitan merchant went on, “your high-minded comments don’t change the fact that you’ve come with a pocketful of silver just like the rest of us.”

“I am not so foolish as to carry my funds on my person,” Duarte said. “The streets of Istanbul can be dangerous at night. But, yes, I am here to purchase, and when I have done so, I will return this piece to the place of its origins. Master Barsam, may we view the artifact now?”

The Armenian rose to his feet. Immediately the servants reappeared, bearing fresh bowls of water and towels so the guests could wash their hands once again.

“Let us repair to the courtyard,” Barsam said. “I have fine musicians here this evening, including a very good player of the tulum. You are familiar with this? A kind of bagpipe; you will enjoy it. Then we will take coffee and you may see the artifact. It is closely guarded and carefully stored. I regret I could not offer this opportunity earlier and to each of you in turn. There were certain dangers attached. I’m sure you will understand.”

Stoyan was waiting by the door and walked out beside me. Across the courtyard, I glimpsed the barrel-chested figure of Duarte’s crewman, the one who had been with him at the market. Murat stood near the gate, talking to one of Barsam’s guards. He looked alert but relaxed, as if he anticipated trouble but was confident he could deal with it.

The tulum player was an artist, wringing a desperately sad voice from his instrument. I could not listen to it without thinking about Tati and Sorrow. The music made me want to cry, but I did not. I sat on a bench between Father and Irene, drinking my coffee out of a tiny tulip-shaped cup in a silver holder. Duarte was perched on the stone rim of the fountain, watching me with his dimples showing. There was no chance at all of speaking to him. Everyone was edgy. Stoyan’s face was in shadow. I could guess what images that bittersweet tune brought to his mind. To lose your only surviving brother at twelve years old was a terrible thing. To have to wait until you were grown up to go and look for him, knowing that every passing day was taking him farther away, if not in miles, then certainly in attitudes, must have been unbearable.

After what seemed an immensely long time, our host invited us to enter a different part of the house, farther down the courtyard. There were massive double doors with elaborate iron bolts. Outside stood an armed guard.

“These precautions are necessary,” Barsam said. “Any buyer of such an item must be equipped to offer it suitable protection. Not all collectors possess such scruples as you do, my friends. And as you doubtless know by now, there is a certain official interest in the artifact. Taking it out of the city will require both ingenuity and excellent security.”

At least one of those present, I thought, had no scruples at all. At least one of them had sent that horrible threat to Antonio of Naples and had perhaps killed Salem bin Afazi as well. I glanced at Stoyan as we went in, and his eyes told me he was thinking the same thing.

There was an antechamber floored with stone and another set of doors that led to an inner room lit by shielded lamps. The only furnishing was a marble-topped table in the center, on which stood a box fashioned of cedar wood and fastened with a heavy lock. We moved to make a circle around the table while Barsam took a key from his sash and turned it in the lock. By the inner door, Stoyan stood on one side and Duarte’s man on the other. The air was almost fizzing with tension. We’d waited a long time for this.

The chest opened soundlessly, its hinges well oiled. Someone made a little sound of surprise as Cybele’s Gift was exposed under the lamplight, nestled in a bed of fine straw packing. Eyes widened all around the circle. Here was no marble tablet with a neat record of ancient sayings, no slab of granite chiseled with antique script. Sitting neatly in the Armenian merchant’s storage chest was a little statue fashioned in clay baked to a rich red-brown and shaped in the form of a generously proportioned woman. Her hair was wild, her nose broad and flat, her mouth stretched in a grin. Her eyes were blank dark holes. Her right ear was chipped, but her left still bore in its pierced lobe a tiny gold ring. It was Cybele herself.

Duarte recovered first. “This is unexpected,” he said. “Master Barsam, may we handle the piece?”

Barsam passed him a pair of thin cotton gloves. At that point, no doubt all the others were wishing they had asked first. Alonso di Parma was frowning. Enzo of Naples wore an expression that I could only describe as avid. Even Irene had a glint of excitement in her eyes.

“Mistress Paula?”

It took me a moment to realize Duarte was holding out the gloves to me. A challenge; I had sensed the frisson of disapproval in the chamber as the Portuguese spoke. I felt my face flush as I slipped the gloves on. I was terrified that my hands would shake and I’d let go of Cybele and smash her to pieces.

“Is this wise—” someone began, then fell silent as I reached into the straw and lifted the statue, supporting it from underneath with one hand as I held the neck with the other. The piece was lighter than I expected, and as it left the box, I saw why. Where the Cybele of the miniature had possessed a round belly, crossed legs, and neat bare feet, this statue ended abruptly at around waist level. Make me whole. A deep shiver ran through me.

“Where is the inscription?” one of the merchants asked. “The lore is that Cybele wrote her last message on the piece. I see no markings of that kind here.”

“That’s because this is only half of Cybele’s Gift,” I said, looking at Barsam. “The writing is on her belly and across her hip, or should be. This piece is broken.”

A profound silence fell. As it drew out, I could almost hear the seven merchants thinking. I knew every one of them was mentally reducing his bid or withdrawing from the competition altogether. The deal had just been turned on its head.

I was asked to substantiate my bold statement and I did, describing the miniature I had seen in Irene’s library and its stunning resemblance to the artifact. Irene confirmed that the picture had indeed shown the figure of a whole woman. I found a trace of ancient writing near the broken-off edge of the statue: all that was left of the inscription. I must have been convincing. The place began to clear quickly, each of the merchants in turn making his polite excuses to Barsam and departing forthwith. Our host appeared unperturbed. He murmured that he had not known Cybele’s Gift was ever more than this half woman or that the inscription was so critical to its value.

Before we left the lamp-lit chamber, Father held the piece himself, subjecting it to close examination. “This is a remarkably neat break,” he said quietly. “If the other part could be located, it would not be so difficult to mend. Wouldn’t you agree, Paula?”

“Mmm,” I murmured, my head buzzing. Had Tati intended me to make just this discovery? Surely the quest she was leading me on could not be to find the missing half of the statue. I had spoken out instinctively, shocked to find Cybele less than her full, exuberant self. It was clear my revelation had lost Barsam the opportunity to deal with most of those present; their buyers would not want the artifact without the goddess’s last words and the luck they conveyed. Did that mean Father would also withdraw from the deal? I tried to read his expression, but I could not. He was wearing his merchant face.

When we got out to the courtyard, most of the guests had left. Duarte was over by the fountain, talking to Irene. He didn’t seem put out in the least by what had happened, or by her glacial stare.

“You wish to leave, Master Teodor?” Stoyan had obtained our cloaks from Barsam’s steward and now stood with them over his arm.

Father lowered his voice. “I wish to create that impression. But I want a word with Barsam after the others have departed. A few moments will do. Paula, the Portuguese seems to be settling for a long talk with your friend. I wonder if he can be persuaded to move farther out of earshot?” There was definitely something afoot; he sounded as if he was suppressing excitement.

“Of course, Father.”

Farther down the garden, the musicians were still playing, not to entertain company now but for their own enjoyment. They were gathered beside an outdoor cooking oven, with a number of Barsam’s household retainers as audience. The tulum had been joined by a drum and a stringed instrument; the rhythm set my feet tapping.

I gathered up Irene and Duarte with an announcement that I was keen to move closer and listen to the music properly. Murat followed us at a discreet distance. Behind me, Father, shadowed by Stoyan, moved to engage our host in quiet conversation. Between the fountain and the tulum, I could not distinguish the words.

“You are fond of music?” inquired Duarte.

“When it’s well played, yes.”

“And dancing?”

“I don’t have much opportunity for that kind of thing, senhor.” I’d danced at Jena’s wedding and at Iulia’s. Apart from that, there had been scant occasion for it since our portal to the Other Kingdom was closed to us.

“Of course.” He nodded sagely, but his dark eyes were dancing themselves. “You are a scholar, too serious for such frivolous pastimes. Since I am myself a lover of books, I salute you for that. On the other hand, it is a trifle early for you to be turning your back on the pleasures of youth. Are you not afraid of growing old before your time?”

“You are offensive, Senhor Aguiar.” Irene’s tone was unusually sharp. “Save your barbed comments for your own kind.”

“Thank you, Irene, but I can defend myself,” I said, squaring my shoulders. “Senhor Duarte, I am a grown woman, and I make my own choices as to how I will spend my time. Sometimes I read; sometimes I dance; sometimes I do neither. As far as I can see, you are a grown man and far too old for silly games.”

“Once again you dismiss me,” Duarte said, and I had no idea whether he was serious or not. “Like the rest of them, you believe I don’t have an ethical bone in my body.”

“Other folk’s opinions are all I have to judge you by,” I said. “Those and the brief impressions I’ve gained at our rather odd meetings. If your actions proved those opinions wrong, I would be quite prepared to revise my judgment.”

“Paula, perhaps we should be moving on,” Irene said. “Your father…” She glanced back toward the fountain, but the light was such that we could not see those who stood beyond it.

The music pounded and wailed its way toward a climax. The onlookers augmented the thumping of the drum with vigorous, rhythmic clapping. “I’d like to listen to the band just a little longer, until he calls me,” I said.

“It might be better if—”

“You think your father has lost interest in buying, now he knows the statue is incomplete?” asked Duarte.

I scrambled to answer the unexpected question. “I would expect that,” I said, even as it struck me that Duarte himself was showing no inclination to leave in a hurry. “It would be different if we had some information about where the other part is. If we found that in good condition and could repair the piece, it would still be worth buying. The value would be much lower, of course, even if the mending was expertly done. But Barsam didn’t seem to know about the other half. It would be quite a mission to track it down.”

“Agreed.”

There was something arresting in Duarte’s expression; I tried to interpret it. Was it possible he still planned to bid? How far would he lower his own offer, knowing only part of the artifact was on sale?

His lips twitched; his dark eyes twinkled. “You wish to read my mind?” he queried.

“I’m not so desperate for entertainment,” I snapped, annoyed to be caught staring.

Irene came to my rescue. “Of all those present,” she observed, “you, Senhor Aguiar, seemed the least surprised by Paula’s revelation. And I note that you remain here in conversation with ladies when all others are gone.”

“Ah.” He gave an enigmatic smile, directed more at me than at my companion. It was as if he wanted to share a secret and, despite my better judgment, I felt a thrill inside me akin to that produced by the wild music of the tulum. “I am not here solely as a purchaser, Mistress Irene. I came also to renew my acquaintance with the charming Paula. As unrelated men and women do not mingle in public places here in Istanbul, I must seize what opportunities come my way to speak with her.” He glanced at me. “You’re blushing again,” he murmured. “How sweet. When you look like that, it becomes obvious why you need a chaperone.”

“This conversation is finished!” snapped Irene, moving forward to take my arm. “Senhor Aguiar, you are old enough to know better.”

“Senhor Duarte has yet to prove that,” I put in. “Thus far I remain unconvinced.”

“Of my age or of my wisdom, Paula?”

“I don’t know how old you are, nor am I especially interested,” I said. “But I do have a question for you. What did you mean before, when you said you’d take Cybele’s Gift back to the place of its origins if you bought it? What place? I thought all that was known was the general region it came from, not an actual location.”

The tulum played on; the fountain added a soft accompaniment. It seemed to me that both Duarte and Irene had become suddenly very still, as if my speech had possessed some meaning far beyond what I had intended. I had strayed into deep waters and had no idea how to get out.

“Your father uses you well,” Duarte said eventually, his tone level. “A man allows himself to be diverted by your wit. He starts to enjoy the lash of your sharp tongue and quite forgets you are a merchant’s daughter. Since the piece is broken, your question is no longer relevant, Mistress Paula.”

I was so offended I found myself without a reply. Maybe I had offered to obtain information from Duarte and others by exercising my limited charms on them, but the question I had just asked had been framed out of genuine curiosity, nothing more devious. And did I really have a sharp tongue? I heard Irene draw a deep, indignant breath, ready to speak.

“Kyria.” A deep voice from behind me: Stoyan’s. I breathed a sigh of relief. “Your father is ready to go.”

“Then I will bid you good night, Mistress Paula.” Duarte was all smooth courtesy, but he was looking over my head, and his eyes were full of challenge.

“Good night, Senhor Duarte,” I said. “It’s been…interesting…talking to you.”

“Good night, Mistress Irene.”

Irene gave the Portuguese a frosty nod, then Stoyan steered us away like an efficient sheepdog gathering up strays from a flock. I could think of no reason why we would ever see Duarte da Costa Aguiar again. I should have been relieved. He had flattered me and insulted me, made me feel warm with pleasure, intrigued, confused, and angered me all in the space of an evening. Talking to him was like treading a path across stepping-stones set a little too far apart. But what I felt most strongly was disappointment.

I was in the storeroom of Irene’s library, poring over another leaf from the Persian manuscript. It was quiet. I was alone, standing by a high desk on which the piece had been laid out with care, its corners weighted down by squat creatures with bulbous toes. The light was fitful, and I could not see the tiny illustration clearly. Inside the lamp, fireflies swarmed, their bodies glowing behind the glass shade. I winced as they blundered against it. I had never been fond of insects.

The miniature. I must concentrate. I must study it, for time was running out. I narrowed my eyes, trying to focus. Was that a figure standing on another’s shoulders? A girl? She was wearing trousers—most indecorous—and was reaching up to grasp something above her head. Picking apples? The man supporting her was balancing on something himself. It all looked quite precarious. And there was something else there…. I must carry this out into better light. But carefully. Nobody must see.

The hanging was down over the door to the main chamber, and when I brushed against the cloth, a swarm of little flies arose from within its fibers to hover around my head. I held my breath and squeezed my eyes shut, ducking around into the library proper.

I opened my eyes. There was a scholar at every table: a hooded soothsayer, a wizard in a hat with stars on it, a tiny gnome hunched over a map, an old man dipping a peacock-feather quill into an inkwell of faceted crystal. Light poured down from above, an otherworldly light as pale as dawn and pure as springwater, but not from the holes pierced in the plasterwork or from a torch or a lamp. A sphere floated there, two arms’ lengths above the scholars, held by nothing but sheer magic. I walked forward, but nobody so much as gave me a cursory glance. I opened my mouth to greet them, for they were all dear and familiar, my friends from the Other Kingdom with whom I had argued and debated on every night of full moon through the years of my childhood. A moment later, everything shifted and changed, and I was no longer in the library but in Dancing Glade, scene of the fairy revels I knew so well. Ileana, queen of the forest, sat on her willow wood throne, and before her knelt my sister Tati, clad in a white gown with her dark hair flowing down her back and her big violet-blue eyes desperate with feeling. Around them were gathered the same folk I had just seen in the library. Many others, from dwarf to giant, from salamander to owl, watched on in silence. I was part of that crowd, and yet I knew I was there only in dream form, unable to speak or move.

“I need to see them!” Tati was pleading. “You know I have accepted this way of life. I have done my best to become part of your realm. Love brought me to the Other Kingdom, and it will hold me here forever. I mean no disloyalty to you and yours. But my love for Sorrow did not cancel out my love for my family, Your Majesty. It seems cruel that I can never go back. I just want to hug my sisters and talk to them a little. I need to know they’re safe and well and to show my father that I am all right.”

Ileana was wearing her feathered headdress. She towered above my sister, her robe swirling around her with a life of its own. In its folds, clouds of small bright butterflies danced. Her eyes were cool. “Do you not speak with those of our own folk who are permitted to go across?” she asked. “Grigori or the dwarves? They can report to you on your sisters’ progress. I expect they’re all doing very well, Jena in particular, since we took such a hand in her learning. I can’t imagine why you would concern yourself about them.”

“They’re my sisters,” Tati said simply. “I love them. I miss them. I want to see them so much it hurts. Such things are important to human folk, Your Majesty. Isn’t there some way I can earn the right? Or if I can’t go across, couldn’t I win them the privilege of coming back here, just for a little?”

Ileana gave a slow smile. On the trees around her throne, the leaves shivered. “You do not know what you ask, Tatiana,” she said softly.

“With respect, Your Majesty, I do know,” Tati said. “I’ve talked to Sorrow about it, and he agrees. I am prepared to undertake a quest.”

“I see. And if you had to choose just one of your sisters to see, which would it be? Jena, to whom you owe so much? Little Stela, who lost the most by being forbidden the Other Kingdom, since she was only a child when the portal was closed? Clever Paula, whom our scholars miss so badly, or Iulia, who danced like moonlight?”

Tati’s eyes had widened. “Only one of them?” she whispered. “How could I possibly choose?”

“How indeed?” Ileana looked amused. My heart was pounding fast as I wondered what Tati would do, what cruel choice she would make. “As it is,” the forest queen went on, “you need not decide that part of it until your quest is complete. It will link very neatly with a mission we have for your sister Paula, who happens to be right where we need her. Drǎgua has been asked for assistance—an old, old friend in another part of the world requires human intervention to set matters right. This can become a threefold mission: We can assist Drǎgua’s friend, give you your chance, and, at the same time, help no fewer than three human folk to learn and grow. Tell me, how brave is your sister?”

Then, before I could hear more, the scene dissolved around me, Tati, Ileana, the scholars of the Other Kingdom fading away as if they had never been, and I was lying in my bed at the han, with darkness outside and only my tears for company.

Poor Tati! In all those years of missing her, I had not imagined she, too, might be unhappy. She had been so sure of her love for Sorrow, so certain in her choice to leave us. If only I had been able to hold the dream a little longer. I had so wanted to walk forward, to put my arms around her and tell her we loved her and missed her, as she did us. As for being brave, I hoped very much that I could be as brave as I needed to be.

Now I had to go to the privy. Stoyan was asleep, lying across the outer doorway, through which I must pass to make my way along the gallery. I fumbled for my cloak, then tiptoed out of my closet and across the larger chamber in my bare feet. Stoyan was lying on his back with one arm flung over his eyes and the other relaxed by his side, the blanket loose around him. His pose was that of a small boy exhausted by a day’s activity. For all my confusion, it made me smile. I put one hand against the door frame and stepped across him.

A powerful hand seized my ankle. I teetered, then sprawled at full length onto the hard floor of the gallery. “Ahh!” I exclaimed as a spear of pain stabbed through my ankle.

The hand released its viselike grip. “Paula!” He was on his knees, lifting me with an arm around my shoulders, his voice rough with comprehension come a moment too late. “I hurt you! Why were you out of bed? What is wrong—”

“Nothing,” I said, grimacing as I gingerly felt my ankle. “I got up to go to the privy, that’s all. I didn’t want to wake you. I’m fine, really.” But my ankle still hurt, and as soon as I tried to rise to my feet, it was obvious. I hobbled to one of the chairs by the little gallery table and lowered myself carefully onto it. “I’ve just wrenched it,” I said.

Stoyan looked devastated at what he had done. “You are crying.” He crouched by me, reaching a hand to brush my cheek. “You are badly hurt. I should wake Master Teodor—”

“Don’t. I will be all right soon, Stoyan. They’re not tears of pain. I had another dream. I really didn’t want to disturb you again. I’m sorry. And now I’m going to have to hobble to the privy. You might need to help me. So much for lessons in self-defense.”

Leaning on him, I got there and back well enough. Then I was wide awake, the image of Tati clear in my mind and the mission teasing at my thoughts. “I won’t be able to sleep for a while,” I said. “You don’t need to stay up with me. I’ll just sit here and think.”

“I will put a strapping on your ankle.” He was already looking in his bundle of belongings, stowed on a shelf just inside the main doorway of our quarters. “If you permit. It will swell before morning; this will make it more comfortable.”

The ankle hurt too much for me to worry about propriety. “Thank you,” I said. “Stoyan, I need to go back to the library in the morning. I dreamed about Tati again; she’s here because she’s earning the right to visit us—her sisters, I mean. That’s the reward for her quest. And it’s tied up with mine. Stoyan, if we go to Irene’s, I might see Tati again and be given my last clues so I can work out what it is we have to do. Will you have time to take me there before you escort Father to the blue house?”

The end to this evening had been interesting. Father hadn’t said a single word about Cybele’s Gift until we had parted ways with Irene and Murat and returned to the han. Then he had calmly reminded me that our own buyer was a scholarly collector of advanced years with a passionate devotion to religious antiquities. This man, unwed and something of a recluse, would care little about the supposed capacity of Cybele’s Gift to bestow a future of good fortune and prosperity on its owner. Chances were he would not be troubled by the availability of only half the piece; he would still want it for its historical interest. Indeed, Father had said, our buyer should be delighted to obtain the item at a reduced price. Slightly reduced. Father had no intention of letting anyone else outbid him now that success was within his grasp. Before we had left the blue house, he had told Barsam he would be back in the morning with a revised bid, one that was likely to be acceptable. He had asked the Armenian to hold Cybele’s Gift until the midday call to prayer.

“There is only one possible problem,” Father had added. “Perhaps one or two of the others might consider coming back to Barsam with revised bids, but I don’t believe anyone was keen enough to act immediately. Except for Duarte Aguiar. He was still there when we left Barsam’s house; I imagine he remains in the race. And they say he’s ruthless. I expect he, too, will be there in the morning, ready with an offer. I’ll go early, but not so early that I disturb Barsam’s household and risk offending him. I can outbid Duarte. The man’s purse cannot be bottomless.”

“He must be quite wealthy,” I’d said. “He couldn’t maintain the Esperança without a good source of funds, surely.”

“Perhaps he has a rich family,” Father had said. “Stoyan, I will need you in the morning. Not straight after breakfast, but a little later.”

Now, in the semidarkness of our quarters, Stoyan had found what he was looking for: a strip of linen and a small pot of something pungent. “A salve,” he explained. “It should bring down the swelling. Will you…?”

I hitched the skirt of my nightrobe up toward my knee and put my foot on the other chair. I made myself breathe slowly as I felt Stoyan’s hands on my ankle, gently massaging in the ointment. A confusion of sensations filled me: pain, certainly, but something else as well, something I liked more than was appropriate. I valued our friendship; I knew he did, too. I liked the way he was there when I needed him, strong, quiet, and capable. Anything further between us—the sort of relationship Irene had hinted at—would be all wrong. There were so many arguments against such a development that I would not even entertain the idea of it.

When he was done, Stoyan wrapped my ankle in a neat bandage. “This Aguiar,” he murmured as he bent to fasten the ends of the linen securely, “you like him?”

A startling question. “What do you mean by ‘like him’?” I asked.

“You spoke much to him tonight. As if he were not an acquaintance but a friend. There was a smile in your eyes as you did so. I wonder if you have not heeded my warning. He seeks to exploit you, Paula. I see this in his face.”

Cautiously, I returned my foot to the ground. “It does feel much better with the strapping,” I acknowledged. “Thank you, Stoyan. And don’t worry about Duarte. He loves to flirt. If it hadn’t been with me, it would have been with some other woman. It means nothing.”

“You did not answer my question.” He was rolling up the extra bandage, stowing things away.

I tried to summon an honest answer. “It seems wrong to say I like him if there’s any possibility he was the one who threatened Antonio. But he appeared quite shocked when I suggested that, so maybe I was wrong. Duarte is interesting to talk to, full of surprises. He seems to enjoy the same kinds of things I do, books and ideas in particular. I’m flattered that he wants to talk to me. But I don’t trust him. And maybe you can’t actually like someone unless you have trust in them.” The topic was uncomfortable, especially in the middle of the night. “You should go back to sleep,” I said.

“Why were you crying? What did you see in your dream?”

“I dreamed about Tati.” My voice sounded small and forlorn; I couldn’t help it. “She was in the Other Kingdom, and she was saying how much she missed her family and that she would undertake a quest just to be allowed to see us….”

A sudden wave of homesickness came over me. I covered my face with my hands, unable to stop the tears. Stoyan moved to kneel by my chair and put his arm around my shoulders, muttering something indistinct. I gave myself up to weeping. It was only when the flood began to abate that I realized I was holding on tightly with my face pressed against his shoulder and that he was whispering words of comfort against my hair and doing his own share of holding. So much for heeding my own good advice.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I muttered, pulling back. “How embarrassing for you. I can’t believe I did that. It may be hard for you to believe, but I’m actually not the crying sort of girl. In your company, I seem to have been doing it regularly. Please don’t tell Father I was so upset. He’d be worried.”

“As you wish.” Stoyan had withdrawn to a safe distance. His face was in the shadows, and I had no idea what he thought of my inappropriate behavior or my attempt at an apology. “Master Teodor is not the only one who worries,” he went on. “With your ankle injured, you are still more vulnerable. I cannot teach you what I planned to; not yet. But I can show you a trick that you may use even when not at your full strength. Let me demonstrate….”

So it was that, in the middle of the night, I learned a way of getting out of someone’s grasp by cunning rather than by physical strength. We even practiced it, in a modified form that would not strain my ankle. It kept me so occupied that there was no chance to brood on anything else. When the combat session was over, I felt obliged to deliver a lesson in return. By the light of a candle, I made Stoyan practice the letters of the Greek alphabet. He had a remarkably steady hand; I had observed that with our tree exercise. All the same, his fingers holding the twig trembled as he wrote in the sand tray, as if this task were something of which he was deeply fearful. It seemed to me he expected to fail, and the prospect terrified him. I realized I would have to take it more slowly than I had planned. Would a month be long enough to convince him that he could do this? Could he find the will to continue after I was gone?

“We must try to sleep,” I said when we were done and the implements of the lesson were neatly packed away. “Tomorrow is a big day.”

“Today,” said Stoyan. “Thank you, Paula. I hurt you. You responded with kindness. What can I say?”

I smiled. Didn’t he realize he was a very model of kindness? “You can just say good night and sweet dreams,” I told him. “Or no dreams, that might be better. We’re friends, Stoyan. Friends do this sort of thing for each other; it comes with the job.”

“Good night, Paula.” His voice was almost inaudible. “I am honored to be your friend.”

I was in the library, the real one this time, with a second box of manuscripts beside me and my mind darting from one thing to another. I was on my own. Perhaps my pale face and shadowed eyes had alerted Irene to my need for time alone this morning.

If it hadn’t been for the dream, I might have preferred a quiet day at the han waiting for Father to do his deal with Barsam the Elusive and bring Cybele’s Gift safely back. Once we had obtained it, we planned to lock it away and not to take it out again until we were due to board the Stea de Mare in a few weeks’ time. But if there was any chance I might see Tati again, if there was even the slightest possibility I could tell her that I missed her just as much as she missed me and that I would do everything I could to help her win the right to visit us, then I was bound to be in the library waiting for her today.

I began sorting through the contents of the box, hoping the unseen hands that were guiding my mission might provide me with the document I’d been studying in my dream, with its apple-picking girl. I was willing Tati to appear again today with clues for me. I certainly didn’t have enough information yet to perform any sort of quest. Besides, Cybele’s Gift was to be sold today, almost certainly to my father. Once he had acquired it, all that lay ahead was the voyage home. What was it the folk of the Other Kingdom needed me to do?

Make me whole, said a voice in my mind, and a chill went through me. They couldn’t want me to seek out the missing half of the statue myself, surely. The other part could be anywhere. It would take immense resources and unlimited time to mount such a search, with no guarantee of success. If that was what needed doing, they had chosen the wrong person.

It was hard to concentrate. My eyes were on the papers, but my thoughts kept returning to last night and the sensations that had passed through me as Stoyan’s big hands worked so gently on my ankle. I remembered embracing him as I wept and how good it had felt to have his arms around me, tender and comforting. I must not let such a thing happen again. He and I were a world apart. To imagine any future for us beyond the Stea de Mare’s next sailing was pointless.

“Forget it, Paula,” I muttered to myself. “Where men are concerned, you’re not exactly an expert.”

That was certainly true in Duarte’s case. I had no idea how to deal with the man. Everything he did broke the rules. I was obliged to admit that this was one of many things I liked about the Portuguese. He could be guaranteed to surprise me every time I set eyes on him. Not that I was likely to do so again now that the competition for Cybele’s Gift was almost over. I caught myself imagining going home to Piscul Dracului accompanied by the dashing pirate and the dramatic impression this would make on my sisters. I firmly ordered myself to stop acting like a silly girl of thirteen. I must start concentrating on these papers or Irene would think I was simply using her library as a bolt-hole where I could hide and feel sorry for myself.

I went right through the second box, but there were no pages there to match the two I had from the Persian manuscript. The exercise had been a waste of time. Worst of all, Tati had not come. I kept glancing up, hoping to see her black-robed figure seated opposite me, with the embroidered figure of Stela on her handiwork, but there was nothing. Women came in and out of the library, their voices muted, though I thought I caught an undercurrent of excitement in their tone today. Some new item of gossip, no doubt. I probably wouldn’t hear what it was, since I did not intend to visit the hamam with Stoyan away.

Irene came to fetch me for coffee late in the morning. I had been sitting awkwardly and my neck hurt. So did my ankle. It was a relief to accompany her out to the colonnade, where a dainty repast had been laid out for us.

“Did you find what you were looking for, Paula?” Irene asked as she poured the coffee into tiny cups patterned with rich swirls of color and handed one to me.

I shook my head. “I don’t seem to be very efficient today; I’m tired. Maybe another time.”

“Of course.” She sounded calm, but I sensed the same kind of restlessness in her that had been present in the other women, as if she were anticipating some diversion of great interest. But all she said was, “You seem upset, Paula. Is something wrong? You can talk to me. I am the soul of discretion.”

“It’s nothing.” I would not tell her the story of Tati. What if, after all this, my sister never reappeared? What if the puzzles and clues came to nothing? “I twisted my ankle; it is painful after the walk and then keeping still for so long.”

“You poor girl,” said Irene. “You know, the hamam is the perfect thing for relaxing an injured limb and helping with other kinds of hurt as well.” Her eyes were shrewd as she scrutinized my face. “Why not give up on work for the morning and allow Olena to tend to you? Not her usual vigorous massage, of course. She is expert in a gentler form of treatment, which will ease the pain and relax you at the same time. You seem very much on edge this morning.”

“I’m fine.” I took another sip of coffee. The cup shook in my hand.

“You’re not fine at all.” Irene leaned forward, her tone solicitous. “You are stretched as tight as a bowstring. Let me guess. Perhaps your father has gone out on another visit, and you are anxious as to whether it will be successful? Worried that Duarte Aguiar may get there first or bid higher?”

I stared at her.

Irene laughed. “I’m only guessing, Paula. Wasn’t it extraordinary that, here in my library, you found that image exactly matching the artifact? I could hardly believe my eyes when we saw the piece. Your father spoke to Barsam after the viewing—after you had announced Cybele’s Gift was not as it should be. I deduce that Master Teodor did not plan to back out of the deal altogether but had perhaps asked for more time. Maybe he thought himself the only bidder left, in which case he might obtain the item for a much lower price. I could not fail to notice that one guest remained at the blue house after we left: Duarte Aguiar.”

“You probably know him better than I do. Do you think he’ll still bid?” There didn’t seem much point in pretending ignorance.

Her eyes went cold. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Duarte will bid. Tell me, why is your father still interested in Cybele’s Gift? Won’t his buyer be disappointed? Or do the two of you plan to search for the missing half before returning home?”

“Hardly. We haven’t the resources to mount a search across the whole region from here to Tabriz. That’s supposing the fellow who sold it to Barsam ever had the other half.”

“I have a theory, Paula.”

“Oh?”

“You heard Duarte say he planned to return the piece to its place of origin, wherever that may be? I believe that once he has obtained the half statue we saw last night, he will go straight after its other half if he knows where it is. If he doesn’t know, he will search for it. That man has the instinct of a migrating bird; he wings direct for his destination.”

“He could only do that if he was the successful bidder,” I said. “Father has years of experience in the merchant business. And he was going early. I’m certain he will bring the piece back.” I had not intended to state quite so baldly what Father was doing this morning, but it was too late to make any difference now. In all probability, the transaction was already concluded and he and Stoyan on their way home.

“Duarte will stop at nothing, Paula. I did warn you. You saw how he behaved last night—rude, presumptuous, in complete disregard of social niceties. You should have left me to deal with him.”

“Maybe I should go back to the han,” I said, not wanting to pursue this topic. In fact, I thought I had handled Duarte quite well. “I don’t know when Stoyan is coming for me; it depends on how things go this morning. Could Murat escort me back?”

“Unfortunately, Murat is away from home this morning, Paula. Why not take a bath and let Olena tend to your ankle?” Irene rose to her feet. “I cannot allow you to keep working when you are in pain and upset. Come, you’ll feel so much better for a massage.”

I gave in. My ankle was not up to spending the rest of the day in the library, and I could not go home before Stoyan came, so it made sense. There were several women in the hot room, sitting on the benches, lying on the slab, or washing at the basins. As we entered, they were talking animatedly, a fast chatter in Turkish, but at a word from Irene, they fell silent. Perhaps she had told them that I was tired and that the noise might disturb me. It was a little disconcerting. I had not understood any of what they were saying.

Irene and I sat in the steam for quite some time, long enough for me to start feeling extremely sleepy. Then Olena worked on my ankle. By the time she was finished, all the others had gone. I woke myself up by taking a plunge in the deep pool. We settled in the camekan, where Ariadne brought us fresh coffee. I judged it was about time for the midday call to prayer.

“If you wish to lie down,” Irene said, “you may do so here on one of the divans. I can wake you when it’s time to go—”

There was a sound of running footsteps on the path outside, and a moment later the door from the camekan out to the garden crashed open and there was Stoyan, fully dressed, fully armed, and wearing an expression that made me spring to my feet in alarm, completely forgetting that I was clad in only a skimpy length of fine silk. He was as white as linen, and there were dark blotches like bruises under his eyes. His scar stood out vividly against the pallor of his face.

“What?” I took a step, grasping at the silk as it slid precariously downward. “What’s happened?”

“You must come now, Paula. Right away. Get dressed and come quickly.”

Irene was on her feet, her expression furious. “Out!” she commanded. “Turn your eyes away and walk back through that door before I call my men to throw you out!”

“Father, is Father all right?” I babbled, reaching around for my clothes.

“He is safe. Come now, please.” Stoyan was leaving as he spoke. I dropped the silk wrapping and began to scramble into the things Ariadne had set out for me.

“Outrageous,” muttered Irene. “What was my gate guard thinking, to allow this? Paula, that young man is not welcome here in the future. You should dismiss the fellow from your service immediately….”

I was hardly listening, scarcely aware of the garments I was flinging on, another set of this household’s spare clothing. My own things had been bundled up for me; I threw a veil over my hair and seized the package. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Something’s happened to Father; I can tell. I must go.”

Outside, Stoyan was pacing just beyond the door. Farther down the garden, I caught a glimpse of the women from the hamam, fully dressed now, laughing together as they carried bundles and boxes along a pathway.

“Young man,” my hostess said severely, “account for yourself! What is so vital that it warrants a violent intrusion into a private realm of women?”

Stoyan did not so much as glance at her. His eyes were on me. A flush of red now softened the unhealthy pallor of his cheeks. “We must go now,” he said. “Do you have all your things?”

I nodded. “Tell me,” I said. “What’s happened?”

He shook his head and reached to take my arm. “Come,” he said. “Now.”

“I’m sorry, Irene,” I said over my shoulder as he hustled me along the colonnade to the main gate. “I will explain later. Thank you for your hospitality.”

We made our way down the street toward the square with the flowering tree.

“Stoyan, say something!” I hissed.

He was walking very fast. My ankle, which had felt almost normal not long ago, began to throb with pain.

“I can’t keep up,” I gasped. “My ankle hurts. Stoyan, please tell me.” Tears of pain and frustration welled in my eyes.

“I will tell you. We must be where nobody can hear us. The corner of the square, there, by the public fountain.” It was quiet; the call to prayer must have sounded while I was in the hamam. We paused in a spot where the trickling water of the fountain masked our words. “Sit down,” Stoyan said. “I am sorry. I did not know you were in pain. Paula—”

“Just say it, whatever it is, Stoyan. What my mind can invent will be far worse than the truth. What’s happened to him?”

“While we were walking to the Greek lady’s establishment this morning, a guard was sent to the han, from Barsam the Elusive, offering to escort your father to the blue house. Master Teodor should have waited for me.”

I went cold all over. Salem bin Afazi had died in the street. “You said he was safe,” I whispered.

“He is safe. Master Teodor is back at the han but injured, Paula.”

“Injured? How?” I half rose from my perch on the rim of the fountain, and my ankle reacted with a stab of pain.

“I do not know yet how bad it is. I have arranged a doctor, a learned Jew, to tend to him. Master Giacomo and his wife are also with him. He was beaten.”

I shivered. Father was not exactly young, and his health was less than robust. “What did he tell you?” I asked.

“He was deeply unconscious when I found him and not on a straight path to the blue house but in an alley at some distance. I wasted valuable time searching for him. There was no sign of the guard who had collected your father from the han. I have been worried about you, Paula; I wanted to come straight to fetch you, but I could not. Once I brought your father home, I had to find the doctor, make a formal report to the authorities, send a messenger to Barsam the Elusive. It took some time for Master Teodor to regain consciousness, and even then his mind was not fully itself. There was one thing he stated plainly: that he wanted to ask Barsam for more time. I sent the tea merchant’s boy with that request.”

“Oh, God. So he was set upon before he even got to Barsam’s house.” And there was only one bidder left in the race. My heart plummeted. I did not want Duarte Aguiar to have done this, but there could be only one conclusion.

“So it seems. If Barsam denies sending an escort for him, which I believe he will, then it appears this guard was a means of luring Master Teodor out unprotected. He should have waited for me.”

I looked up at him, seeing the desolation in his eyes. “Let’s go on now,” I said. “I’ll walk as fast as I can. You’ve done all the right things, Stoyan. Without you, we might not have found him in time.”

“When he needed me, I was not there,” he said, as if there were no possible excuse for this.

“You weren’t there because I made you take me to Irene’s. That makes it my fault. If not for me, he would have had you to protect him.”

“This is not your fault, Paula.”

“No,” I agreed. “And it’s not yours either. I very much suspect the fault lies with Duarte Aguiar. And if he’s hurt my father, I’m going to make sure he’s held accountable.”

Father had been moved to a different apartment, next to Giacomo’s. He lay against his pillows, his face pale beneath bruises, a bandage swathing his head. The doctor, a youngish man wearing spectacles similar to the ones I used for reading, was seated by the bed, a hand on his patient’s wrist. I took heart from his calm demeanor.

“Paula!” Father said weakly. “You’re safe, thank God.”

I put this together with Stoyan’s dramatic arrival at the hamam and realized they had genuinely believed that whoever had attacked Father might decide to assault me as well.

“Of course I’m safe,” I told him. “I was at Irene’s. And, unlike you, I waited for Stoyan to come and fetch me. Father, what possessed you to go out without him? You must have known—” At the look in his eyes, I stopped myself. “Are you seriously hurt?” I asked him, then glanced across at the doctor.

“Master Teodor has received severe bruising to his back and legs,” the doctor said quietly, speaking in Greek as we were. “No bones are broken. It could be said he was lucky.”

“What about his head? Why is it bandaged?”

“All I can remember is a thump on the back of the skull,” Father said. “The next thing I knew, I was waking up here with Stoyan hovering over me, looking like death. He’d carried me all the way back. I didn’t see my attacker at all. Paula, is there a message from Barsam yet? It’s well past the deadline. I must know if I have an extension of time.”

“I will see if the boy has returned,” Stoyan said. “If not, I will go to the blue house. Write a message if you wish; I will take it there.”

But the boy had returned, and he had brought a note. We asked the doctor if he would mind stepping out of the chamber for a little, and then I read it aloud, my voice faltering before I got halfway down the page.

“‘It is now well past the hour to which we agreed. As I had another party interested, I must regretfully advise you that the item in question has been sold. I wish you every good fortune in your future business….’”

Below the bandage, Father’s face was desolate. I struggled to find words through a rising tide of anger. What sort of way was this to conduct a transaction, using physical violence against a man of fifty to ensure he could not outbid you in what should have been a fair and proper contest? Father could have died.

“Duarte Aguiar shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this,” I muttered, trying to mask my distress.

“As I told you, I have reported the attack,” said Stoyan. “I was asked what party I suspected might have been responsible. I told the authorities that Master Teodor was involved in a sensitive trading matter. Without your permission, I could go no further.”

“Father,” I said in a tone that sounded falsely cheerful even to me, “you’re alive and you’re not seriously hurt. Nothing’s more important than that. Later, perhaps we can give the authorities more information and bring the perpetrator to justice. Right now you need to rest and do what the doctor tells you. Stoyan, will you please let him back in?”

Father put his head on the pillows and closed his eyes. His face was a study in white and gray. Seeing him like that filled me with fury. Underneath it, my resolve strengthened. I wasn’t going to let this pass. I was going to see justice done. And it wouldn’t be through the authorities, whoever they were. That would be too slow. This needed attention now.

I asked the doctor how long he was able to stay, and he said until sunset. Maria was recovered from yesterday’s illness, and she and Giacomo had been coming in and out, tending to Father. They offered to take turns sitting up with him overnight so I could sleep. I was certain Stoyan would remain on duty here, guarding the door against intruders, at least until it was time for me to go to bed.

As I sat sipping the tea Maria had brought in and watching Father fall into a restless slumber, my mind was working quickly. I’d wager a silver piece against a wooden spoon that the Esperança was on the point of sailing, her master and his prize safely aboard already. If Irene had been right, he would be heading off in search of the other half of Cybele’s Gift.

Tabriz, that was the town Barsam had mentioned. I delved into my memory of geography. By water, it would be northward up the Bosphorus, then eastward along the Black Sea before starting a difficult overland journey. Even if Irene’s theory was off the mark, Duarte would want to be gone from Istanbul straightaway. Perhaps he’d purchased Cybele’s Gift by legitimate sale, but the means he’d used to gain the advantage were criminal. He knew we had friends in the merchant community of the city. He must realize that influential people like Giacomo, Alonso di Parma, and Irene of Volos would rally around Father and demand justice. If I waited too long, the Esperança would be gone and Duarte da Costa Aguiar with it.

I finished my tea. Father was asleep. I leaned over and kissed his cheek, feeling like a traitor.

“Stoyan,” I said quietly, “my ankle’s hurting. I’m going back to our apartment to lie down for a while.”

Stoyan nodded. “Of course,” he said. “I will watch over Master Teodor. Rest well.”

In our own quarters, with the door hanging concealing the interior from curious eyes, I hunted in my storage chest until I found what I needed. The full-length garment, all in black, went on easily over the Greek-style clothing I had donned in such haste at Irene’s hamam. I had practiced arranging the two parts of the veil until I could do it quickly and neatly. One went around my brow, tying at the back. The other went over the top of my head, coming down to fasten under my chin. Together, they hid every last curl. There was an additional piece that wrapped from side to side, hiding my nose and mouth and leaving only the smallest window through which I could peer out. In this outfit I might be anyone.

I left the han with a group of folk who had come in to talk to traders on the lower level. As I had suspected, in the swathing dark garments I had become more or less invisible.

My anger drove me quickly. I knew the general direction, and once out of the han, I followed my instincts, scurrying along as fast as I could, trying not to look too obviously lost. Directions would have helped, but to ask for them was to reveal that I was both young and a foreigner, on the streets all by myself. Ideally, I would fulfill my mission and get back to the han before anyone noticed I was gone.

I made errors and lost time, backtracking and moving in circles. It might have been better to tell Stoyan where I was going and why. No; he would have stopped me. If he’d been consulted, I’d never have got the chance to go within five miles of Duarte Aguiar again. I’d just have to be quick and hope Stoyan did not decide to tap on my bedroom door and ask if I was feeling better.

I found myself in a narrow alleyway I was sure I had walked down before: cats in the corners, shuttered windows, shadows creeping out to remind me that the afternoon was passing all too quickly. I closed my eyes and tried to get a sense of direction. When I opened them again, it was to find I was not the only black-clad woman in the deserted alley. Up ahead of me was someone who might or might not be Tati. She was looking at me and beckoning. As I started forward, she whisked around a corner and out of sight.

I hurried after her, ignoring the ache in my ankle. She was quick; I found it hard to keep up. She led me through streets crowded with market stalls, across the courtyard of a mosque whose walls gleamed with blue tiles, down a precipitous flight of stone steps. I turned a corner, panting, and the glittering expanse of the Golden Horn opened up before me, its bank lined with moorings and jetties. Not far away, amidst a confusion of masts and sails, I spotted the Esperança, still at anchor. Her deck was alive with activity; she was almost ready to sail. The path ahead of me was teeming with life, porters bearing bundles, men urging on oxen or donkeys pulling carts of goods, overseers cracking whips, small boys darting in and out of the throng. My guide had disappeared.

I took a deep breath and dived into the crowd, making for the Esperança. My heart was racing, and I felt a cold sweat on my body that had nothing to do with my chase through the city to get here. I had not really thought out what I would say to Duarte when I reached his ship. It was naive and stupid to imagine he would hand over Cybele’s Gift if I asked him for it. I had no money on me beyond a few coppers. Why would he bother to listen to me?

Ahead, I could see men climbing the masts of the pirate ship, readying her sails. There was still a plank down to the dock and people going up and down carrying goods. I would slip on board and find Duarte. I could at least confront him with what he had done. I could give him something to think about while he sailed away with the piece that should have been ours. I could remind him that Father was a middle-aged man with children and grandchildren who loved him and that he could have died from that blow to the head. I could point out what a difference the acquisition of Cybele’s Gift might have made to our whole family. Not that a man like him would care about such things. His family had probably disowned him long ago.

Calm down, Paula, I ordered myself as I approached the ship. How far could I go before someone challenged me? I hesitated, not wanting to step out from the crowd until I had a clear run up to the three-master’s deck. No sign of Duarte himself, though there were many crewmen busy on the ship. The stocky fellow I had seen before with Duarte was issuing orders at a shout.

Here were three men carrying something awkward between them, a crate of some kind. Chickens? The noise from inside the container suggested so. Halfway up the plank, they came close to dropping the whole thing into the water. A chorus of squawking protest ensued, and the crewmen on deck fell about laughing. I was on my toes, ready to move in an instant. They maneuvered their crate up and in, then stood around it with their backs to me as the first mate addressed them in scathing tones. For a moment, all eyes were on him. Quick as a flash, I was up the plank, around a corner, and down a ladder to the area I thought most likely to house sleeping or living quarters.

I found myself in a short passageway with doors on the right side. One of them was open, and people were moving about in the compartment within. I shrank against the wall, trying to blend with the shadows. Under the black robe, I was shaking with nerves.

A voice came from within the cabin, a voice I recognized, though the tone was sharp and crisp, not the lazy drawl I was used to. The words were foreign to me, probably Portuguese.

A man came out into the passageway. Not Duarte; a crewman. I held myself very still, and he went right past me and up the ladder as if I were not there. No sound from the cabin now. Was Duarte alone? Creaks and shouts from the deck suggested I could not wait to find out. Wherever the Esperança was headed, I certainly didn’t plan to go with her. Still, I reasoned, they would not sail until the captain was on deck. I stepped over to the doorway and tapped on it. “Excuse me.” It sounded stupid, as if I was making a polite social call. I cleared my throat as Duarte Aguiar looked up from the chart he was studying and gazed at me in astonishment. “I must talk to you.”

He rose very slowly to his feet. “Who—” he began; then as I removed the veil from my face, his eyes widened. “We’re about to sail,” he said, his tone incredulous. “What are you doing on board my ship, Paula? Where is your father?”

It was like a red rag to a bull. “How dare you!” I burst out, striding into the tiny cabin. “When you know quite well what was done to him today, how dare you stand there so cool and calm, acting as if nothing was wrong? I can see the ship’s about to sail, and I know you’ve got Cybele’s Gift on board! You’ve robbed us!”

Duarte gave a slow smile, and I clenched my fists in rage. Not only was he pretending ignorance but he was mocking me as well. “Perhaps you should take a deep breath and count to ten,” he said lightly. “Then begin at the beginning. But be quick. I have a voyage to make, and there are reasons why I cannot delay it.”

“I bet!” I retorted. “Like being charged with organizing an attack on someone who was just going about his legitimate business. My father could have been killed!”

He pushed the chart to the back of the table and perched himself on the edge. “Paula,” he said with infuriating calm, “if something has happened to your father, I’m sorry. But this has nothing to do with me. You shouldn’t be here on my ship, and you shouldn’t be out on the streets of Istanbul alone. Where’s your guard? And how on earth did you get in here without anyone seeing you?”

“Tell me the truth,” I demanded, hands on hips. “You’ve got it, haven’t you? Cybele’s Gift?” Casting my eyes around the cabin, I spotted a very familiar box at the foot of the narrow bunk that ran along one wall. The iron lock and reinforcing bands were unmistakable.

“As you see.”

“Father would have outbid you,” I said. “You knew he was going back there this morning; you knew he would make a better offer than anything you could scrape together. Instead of going through with the process properly, as any self-respecting trader would, you sent in your band of thugs to beat him in the street before he could even get to Barsam’s house. I have only one word for a man who does that sort of thing: heartless. Your behavior sickens me. You were planning this, weren’t you, even as you practiced your charms on me last night over supper? You’re disgusting!” I drew a deep breath. My whole body was vibrating with rage.

Duarte rose to his feet. He was a tall man; the cabin seemed too small to accommodate him. “Paula—” he began; then I heard a commotion from the dock outside: shouts, crashing, the sounds of a street brawl of momentous proportions. Duarte took a quick look through the porthole and an instant later was gone, slamming the door behind him. I flung myself across the cabin, wrenching at the handle, but the wretched thing wouldn’t open. He’d locked me in.

I hammered and shouted, but nothing happened. The din from outside was loud enough to drown my pathetic efforts completely. I kept trying anyway, until my hands hurt and my throat ached. I cursed my own stupidity. It had been pointless to come here. Duarte was never going to listen to me. Why should he? He was the sort of man who went straight for what he wanted, not caring at all who fell by the wayside.

The sounds from outside were getting louder—mostly grunts, screams, and oaths in several languages. There was one word I picked out clearly above the rest of it. “Paula!” The voice was familiar.

I clambered onto a stool and looked out the porthole. At the foot of the gangway, a full-scale brawl was in progress. Kicks and blows were meeting flesh, men were flying through the air to land with sickening thuds on the boards of the landing or, in one instance, with a splash in the waters of the Golden Horn. People were bleeding—this was no spur-of-the-moment scrap but brutal and serious combat. At quite some distance stood an official-looking figure, a big, turbaned man with a staff in one hand. He was watching with every appearance of being mightily entertained and made no move to intervene.

It was wrong. It was all wrong. It was the most one-sided contest anyone could imagine. What I could see below me, through the narrow view the porthole offered, was quite clearly a mob attack on one solitary individual. It was amazing that the white-faced, black-haired, rather busy person in the center of it all had managed to keep his feet for so long. His eyes were blazing with determination, his mouth was fixed in a snarl, his clothing was soaked with sweat, and he was using every bit of skill and strength he had to keep the mob at bay. While they maintained their assault, there was no way he could get a foot onto the plank laid from the dock up to the Esperança’s deck. There could be only one reason why he had come here. If they killed him, it would be my fault.

“Stoyan!” I shrieked. “Behind you, there!” For I had seen what he could not: the flash of a knife in a man’s hand.

He couldn’t hear me. He couldn’t hear the scream that built up in me as I waited to see him struck down and trampled beneath the booted feet of the mob. As the weapon rose, ready to stab, something flew through the air to crash onto the heads of two of the attackers and splinter with explosive effect into the general fray. A rain of similar missiles followed. From the deck of the Esperança, people were shouting: “Vinde, por aqui, saltai! Soltai-o, seus filhos de cães!” Then again, in the tone of a command, “Saltai! Saltai!”

I was screaming with the best of them by now and pounding my fists on the wall beside the porthole—“Watch out! Duck! Look left!”—as Stoyan whirled and dodged and staggered right on the edge of the dock, his assailants moving like a dragging garment all around him. A hurled stone struck him on the forehead, and a crimson stream began to pour down into his eye, half blinding him. He put up a hand to dash the blood away, and in a sudden flashing movement, someone struck at his arm. He stumbled. “No!” I screamed. “Stoyan, no!” For I could see what might be next, and it froze my heart.

The gangplank was being pulled up; Duarte did not want this unruly crowd on his well-kept ship. A gap of two arms’ lengths opened up between the plank and the dock. Someone on the ship, recognizing belatedly that Stoyan could not understand the crew’s shouts, yelled out in Greek, “Jump! Come on, jump!”

With the hands of several attackers grabbing at his dolman and sash, Stoyan jumped. I saw the leap. The landing was beyond my line of vision. I didn’t hear a splash; but then I probably wouldn’t. The mob was howling for Stoyan’s blood, and the crew of the Esperança were shouting imprecations in return. I needed no Portuguese to interpret those; I could guess. Then, from the deck, a command rang out in a voice I recognized. A moment later the ship shuddered and creaked and, to a chorus of angry shouts from the shore, began to edge away from her mooring. Duarte da Costa Aguiar was sailing his ship out of Istanbul with me on board.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I demanded. The Esperança was heading north up the Bosphorus under full sail. The crew had settled to their various tasks with the ease of well-oiled pieces of machinery, and having finally been liberated by a tongue-tied sailor, I stood on the deck facing Duarte, the wind whipping the folds of the long black garment around my body and tossing my hair into my eyes. “Why didn’t you wait until I was safely ashore before you sailed? And where’s Stoyan?”

“To answer the last question first,” Duarte said, his expression somewhere between amusement and irritation, “your friend is on board and being tended to by one of my crew. He’ll live; his injuries are more spectacular than serious. Why didn’t I wait? It’s bad enough having a hotheaded young woman on my ship, not to speak of her pugnacious bodyguard, without throwing in a brawling mob for good measure. What do I think I’m doing? Taking my ship on the voyage I always intended to make, for perfectly legitimate reasons.”

“Legitimate. I doubt it. Why the rush? Couldn’t you have pulled away from the docks and waited until the crowd dispersed? Then you could have put the two of us back onshore. In case you missed it when I mentioned this before, my father was set upon by thugs this morning and severely beaten. I need to get back before—” I faltered, realizing how this sounded.

“Before he learns that you left him on his sickbed to race out and get yourself in trouble? Before Master Teodor discovers he is not only without his daughter, but has lost his bodyguard as well, thanks to the fellow’s need to chase after that same daughter and bring her to her senses? You are too ready with your accusations, Paula. If you did not want your father worried, you should have stayed at home.”

I swallowed a retort. It was clear to me that, in the matter of the assault on my father, the most likely perpetrator was Duarte or his agent—I did not think he would perform deeds of that kind in person. Hadn’t someone said he always took care to avoid being caught? He wasn’t going to admit it to me, and I’d made a big mistake in ever thinking he might. Now I’d almost got Stoyan killed, though who those men had been and why they had attacked him I could not imagine. I could not blame that on Duarte; his crew had saved Stoyan’s life. I should cut my losses and concentrate on getting us both off the boat and back to Father as quickly as possible. He might still be asleep. He might not need to be told.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said as Duarte shifted restlessly, his eyes on the activities of his crew. “Listen to me! They look as if they can sail the boat pretty well without you. Now tell me, if you’re not fleeing from punishment for what you did, why are you in such a hurry?”

He leaned on the rail, and behind him the shores of the Bosphorus passed, a soft, leafy parade of green banks dotted with the white walls of dwellings. Now a fortress tower…Dear God, we were already passing Rumeli Hisari.

“Duarte,” I said, trying to suppress a hysterical note in my voice, “you must put in to shore and let Stoyan and me get off the ship. We need to go back to Istanbul.”

A wary look had appeared in his dark eyes. “I can’t,” he said.

“You have to!” Now I sounded shrill, but I couldn’t help it. With every moment that passed, we were less likely to be back in the city by nightfall. Father might think I had been beaten and left for dead, as he had been. He might think Stoyan and I had run off together. No, probably not that; he knew both of us too well. But I suspected that would be what everyone else would believe. The news of our disappearance would spread like wildfire through the trading community of the Galata quarter. Father would certainly be distressed and anxious. What if the shock proved fatal to him in his weakened state?

“You have to,” I repeated. “Why would you want to abduct us? We have absolutely nothing to offer you.”

He smiled. It was not the mischievous smile he used when flirting, nor the rapacious one he had turned on the traders of the çarşi, but a smile that seemed genuinely apologetic. He shrugged, gesturing helplessness. “I can’t do it, Paula,” he said. “There are reasons, very good ones, which I will explain to you in due course; that’s if you are prepared to stop shouting at me long enough to hear them. In brief, I believe it’s possible we may be pursued. We must make what speed we can to avoid being overtaken. I hope to stay far enough ahead so we can lose them once we reach the Black Sea.”

“Pursued?” This was not what I had expected. “By whom? And why?” I wondered who else he had injured, what other property he had obtained by devious means, what other innocent folk he had kidnapped.

“Later,” Duarte said. “You were right, my crew can do the job without my interference. But when I put them under exceptional pressure, it seems only right to take my share of the responsibility. It’s not simply a matter of tricky sailing. It’s the need to tolerate passengers on board. I hope you are a quick learner.”

I stared at him, unable to interpret this.

“If all you can offer are insults and false accusations,” Duarte said coolly, “you should keep your mouth shut. My men are loyal. They won’t take kindly to a barrage of invective.”

“I’ll make sure I don’t do it in Portuguese,” I said. “Anything else?”

“My cabin is at your disposal. I’ll move my things elsewhere. Be careful with the door; it has a tendency to stick. Don’t go anywhere else. You can’t use the crew’s facilities for washing and…er…”

“If you stop and set me ashore, you’ll have no need to bother with such embarrassing details, senhor.” My heart shrank at the prospect of spending a night on board while the Esperança plowed on northward.

“What are you wearing under that?”

I felt my face grow hot. The question seemed grossly inappropriate.

“Never mind.” Duarte was showing signs of exasperation. “Without the robe, you’ll get cold. And if you keep it on, you won’t be safe on the ladders. Pero, my first mate, will find you some clothing. When he does, don’t argue, put it on. Now you’re to go to the cabin and keep quiet until further notice. Don’t slow me down, Paula, or I’ll throw you over the side as a treat for the fish.”

After a moment I said, “I want to see Stoyan.”

“You will find him in the adjacent cabin, which is Pero’s. Cozy for you. Go on, and I don’t want to see either of you on deck again until you’re called for.”

Stoyan had a dressing on his forehead and another on his left arm, which was in a sling. A sailor with a tattooed chin was tying this neatly at the shoulder when I came in. The man grinned at me and said something in Portuguese. As soon as the knot was fastened, Stoyan stood up, hitting his head on the ceiling, and conveyed by gestures that he and I were to be left alone.

“How could you do that?” he said as soon as the man was out the door. His voice was shaking with fury. “What on earth possessed you?” A moment later he added, “Kyria.”

I had expected him to be angry. I had not expected to be so upset by it. Perhaps it was knowing I was in the wrong that hurt so much. “Are you all right?” I asked him. “Who were those men?”

“That is unimportant. What were you doing, Paula? How could you leave the han on your own?”

I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Truly sorry. If I’d known you were going to come running after me and get yourself half killed, I would have…” I paused. Even that would probably not have stopped me. It had seemed so important to make Duarte see the error of his ways before he traveled out of reach, taking Cybele’s Gift with him. “I had to talk to him, to Senhor Aguiar,” I said. “And it’s nothing to do with falling for his charms. He must be responsible for the attack on my father. He’s got Cybele’s Gift on board, in that cabin through there. He made no attempt to deny it. Father was beaten to stop him from getting to the blue house in time. He was attacked because Duarte knew Father would outbid him if he was allowed to compete fairly.”

He stood there looking at me, lips tight.

“Stoyan, I couldn’t just let this go. I couldn’t let Duarte sail away without accounting for himself. I had to tell him what this meant to us, to me and Father. I was hoping he might see sense.”

“And did he?” Stoyan’s tone was deeply skeptical.

“No. He denied having anything to do with the beating.”

“And here we are on the ship.”

“There’s worse,” I said, reluctant to give him any further reason to be angry with me.

“Tell me. What is worse than doing this to Master Teodor when he is already weak and despondent?”

“Stop it! I feel guilty enough already. I asked Duarte to put in at one of the anchorages on the Bosphorus and let us get off so we could make our way back to the city by road. He said he can’t. Something about pursuers and needing to reach the Black Sea before they catch up. I have no idea who would be interested in following him.”

Stoyan sat down abruptly on the edge of Pero’s narrow bunk and put his good hand up to touch the bandage around his brow. “A slight headache only,” he said, perhaps seeing some change in my expression. “Paula, I already know about that part of it. That fellow who was here knew enough Turkish to tell me. You know of the raids on various trading centers by representatives of the Sheikh-ul-Islam. It is this party Aguiar suspects of following him. That makes sense—who else would have the resources to mount a chase by sea?”

“The Mufti? But why? Isn’t he only interested in tracking down the cult in Istanbul, if it exists?”

“That, you must ask Aguiar. I do know his crew anticipates an attempt to seize Cybele’s Gift, either at sea or in the place to which we sail, wherever that may be. They think they can outrun the other vessel if it does not leave the city too soon after the Esperança. But they have no time for un-scheduled stops. It seems we are with them all the way.”

I gaped at him, astonished that he had learned so much when I had failed to get any of this out of Duarte. After a moment, Stoyan managed a smile.

“The man was keen to ask me about some tricks I used on the docks,” he said. “Techniques that may be employed to good effect when a fight is uneven. We exchanged information. I think the crewmen are friendly enough. They did get me out of trouble. But I do not like your being on the ship. One woman and a lengthy voyage…You must stay down here and let me guard you, Paula. No more risky ventures on your own.”

His words had turned me cold. “How do you know it’s going to be a lengthy voyage?” I asked him. “How long is ‘lengthy’ anyway?” More than the one night I had been dreading, I was certain.

“It depends on the wind. Unless the conditions are unusually good, the fellow said it will be six days or more.” And, as my jaw dropped, he added, “For the return trip, twice that.”

Father with no news for nearly two weeks. Father desperately searching. Father ill and distressed, perhaps thinking me dead. I wrapped my arms around myself and turned away, temporarily speechless.

“Paula.” The anger was gone from Stoyan’s voice. “We will come through this safely. Don’t cry, please.”

“I’m not!” I said fiercely. “Curse Duarte Aguiar! This is all his fault!”

But it wasn’t. Maybe Duarte had done something bad, two things at least, and set the whole chain of events in motion. But I was forced to acknowledge that a large part of the responsibility was mine.

I wanted explanations, but the ones I got did not satisfy me. With the sky fading to dusk and the Esperança still plowing a choppy way northward, Duarte came down to his cabin, where Stoyan was sitting on the floor just inside the doorway and I was cross-legged on the bunk with my spectacles on, reading aloud. In the captain’s quarters I had found a small collection of books, some in Portuguese, others in Greek. Whether Stoyan really wanted to listen to classical poetry under the present circumstances was debatable. I had thought it would help to divert us from our predicament.

“Very fetching,” Duarte commented as he ducked under the lintel and came in. He was eyeing the outfit I was now wearing. The trousers, shirt, and boots had belonged to a young crewman of diminutive size, Pero had told me in careful Greek, a lad who very sadly had suffered a mishap on an earlier voyage and was no longer with the Esperança. This boy might have been small, but the garments hung loose on me, and the shirt fabric was on the flimsy side, almost transparent. After trying everything on while Stoyan waited outside, I had searched through Duarte’s storage chest and made the adjustment my outfit required to be acceptably modest, if still unconventional. I had no intention of spending a two-week voyage shut up in this box of a chamber for want of appropriate clothing.

“Isn’t that one of mine?” Duarte queried, his gaze traveling up and down the belted tunic I wore over the things Pero had provided. This garment was made of very fine wool in a blue-gray shade and covered me from neck to knees. The sash I was using as a belt went around my waist twice.

“As you said, it’s cold up on deck. I needed it,” I said. “If you don’t want to share, you shouldn’t shut strangers in your cabin.”

“It looks much better on you than it ever did on me.” Duarte glanced toward the locked box at the foot of the bunk. “You’ve been through my meager wardrobe and raided my library, but you haven’t bothered with Cybele’s Gift,” he said. “The key’s right on the table there.”

“There wouldn’t be any point.” I made my tone coolly polite. “What do you imagine I would do, smash her and drop her over the side just to spite you? I’m not vindictive, senhor. I wanted to see justice done, that was all. But I imagine you don’t have much concept of that.”

“Your imagination is sadly limited, then,” he retorted. “I had been planning to offer you some clarification, since you were so keen for me to account for myself. But I’m beginning to realize it would be pointless. You’ve already judged me, and your opinion cannot be swayed by any words of logic.”

Stoyan had risen to his feet, awkward with the sling, and fixed the pirate with a stare that would have made another man shrink. “Neither of us wishes to be here, senhor, and it is clear that you, too, wish we had remained behind in Istanbul. I am grateful to your crew for getting me out of a predicament. But I cannot tolerate your manner toward Paula. She acted in good faith in an attempt to help her father. Do you not value family loyalty?”

Duarte sighed. “Perhaps we should start again. I have made some arrangements that I hope will relieve some of your anxiety. Paula, the crew have agreed to give you access to our ablution area three times daily. They will not disturb you while you make use of it. Stoyan here can stand guard if you’re worried; it’s not exactly private. You won’t be used to life aboard a ship. We don’t wash much and we don’t cook. There’s dried meat, olives, hard bread. You’ll be pleased to hear we took on fresh water in Istanbul.” He glanced at Stoyan. “Once that arm’s back to normal, you can make yourself useful. A man of your strength will be an asset to the crew.”

“I guard Paula.”

“Paula doesn’t need a guard all day and all night. I run a tight ship. She’ll be quite safe.”

“So I don’t have to stay in here?” I ventured, not meeting Stoyan’s eye. I was struck by the fact that both of them were calling me Paula, even when speaking to each other. I suspected it was the first of many changes to come.

“I’ll tell you when you can come on deck and where you can sit to keep out of folk’s way,” Duarte said. “You’ll need a cloak; Pero will find you one. Remember that we’re in a hurry. Don’t expect fascinating conversation and nonstop entertainment.”

I gave him a scathing look. “We’ll amuse ourselves,” I said. “Provided we can have access to your books. And some writing materials, if you have them.”

“You plan to pen missives home complaining that you are captive on a pirate ship? Place them in a corked jar, perhaps, and throw them overboard with a hopeful prayer?”

I did not dignify this suggestion with an answer.

“Do we sail through the night?” Stoyan asked.

Duarte shook his head. “We’ll drop anchor in a bay somewhere tonight and be off again at first light. Night sailing is too risky, and I imagine the pursuers will adopt the same caution. In the Black Sea, I plan to lose them. At the end of the voyage, I must take Cybele’s Gift overland. If I can, I want to make that landfall unobserved. A chase across a mountain pass is not a prospect I relish.”

Stoyan and I both looked at him. Duarte seemed to be waiting for us to speak.

“All right,” I said, laying the poetry book down on the bed. “Tell us exactly what it is you’re doing. Where are you taking Cybele and why? And while you’re about it, tell me who those men were who attacked Stoyan on the docks. Not yours, I presume, since your crew rescued him.”

Duarte sat down on the bunk beside me. I edged away, knowing there was no chance of following normal rules of propriety in such a place but wary all the same. Stoyan remained standing, his eyes narrow.

“I find that I am not quite prepared to trust you,” Duarte said, glancing at me and away. For the first time, his tone sounded less than fully confident, and that surprised me. “Much rides on this. A personal stake that cannot be measured in gold or silver. I became aware some time ago that, alongside the merchants who were bidding for Cybele’s Gift, another party wished to track down the artifact for his own reasons. The interest of the religious authorities in Istanbul was at first a tightly guarded secret but became common knowledge as the raids began.”

“Go on,” I said.

“You will know that I speak of the Sheikh-ul-Islam,” Duarte said gravely. “He is a ruthless man, and he has a long reach. In hindsight, I suspect his hand in the murder of your father’s Turkish colleague. Salem bin Afazi was a devout Muslim. He made the error of putting personal friendship before the strict observance of his faith when he gave Master Teodor advance notice of this artifact’s arrival in the city. That alone, I believe, would have been enough to attract the Mufti’s attention. The religious authorities being what they are, it may have been interpreted as a personal interest in pagan idolatry. I cannot say how the Sheikh-ul-Islam came by the information, but the punishment was quick and deadly.”

This was shocking and, I was forced to admit, entirely believable. It was the same idea Stoyan had hinted at when we first discussed Cybele’s Gift. And if Duarte was telling the truth about this, perhaps he had also been honest when he’d said the attack on my father was not his doing. If that was the case, I had behaved appallingly toward him.

“Is there other evidence to back up your theory?” asked Stoyan.

“Indeed. Men have been tailing the bidders around Istanbul.” Duarte gave Stoyan an appraising glance. “Until you came rushing on board to accuse me of attacking Master Teodor, Paula, I believed your father was the one bidder, apart from myself, who had managed to move about the city untracked. Pero and I discussed this and put it down to his cool head, his experience, and the presence of Stoyan. I was taken aback to hear that Master Teodor had been assaulted this morning. The timing was odd, since it was clear the Mufti’s attention was on me today—he has finally learned of my interest in Cybele’s Gift. Pero recognized several of those who set upon Stoyan. Our friend here happened to be in the wrong place at a crucial time. The Mufti’s men were trying to board the Esperança and carry out a search before we sailed. Stoyan got in their way. In the ensuing confusion, he was lucky to escape with his life. Pero holds the theory that once a brawl commences in such a public spot, passersby have a tendency to join in for no better reason than entertainment. Hence we had folk pushing in all directions, when a little cooperation might have enabled the Mufti’s party to board quite easily. You did us a favor, Stoyan.”

“Which your crew returned,” Stoyan said. “I did not know who had dispatched that mob to the dock. I did know that if there was any chance Paula had reached your ship, I did not want them on board.”

“A search?” I was puzzled by Duarte’s theory. “But wouldn’t the Mufti send uniformed Janissaries? Or officials? That just looked like a band of thugs.”

Duarte smiled thinly. “Officials carry out inspections, interviews, visits. In this case, I suspect what was intended was brazen theft, backed up by violence as required. In broad daylight, on a crowded dock, with a crew such as mine to confront, it could not be done covertly. Hence the thugs: unidentifiable by passersby, with nothing to connect them with the Sheikh-ul-Islam. But we know who sent them. Pero is extremely well informed about who hires whom at a certain level of activity.”

“How can you call it theft,” I challenged, “when the artifact is stolen already?”

Duarte sighed in exasperation. “Paula, my silver is as good as your father’s. I paid a fair price; Barsam was happy. Cybele’s Gift is legitimately mine. For a short time.”

“For a short time,” I said flatly. “Until when, exactly? Where is it we’re going?” I remembered the trip from Constana and the few moments when the prospect of being boarded and attacked had seemed all too real.

Duarte hesitated.

“Senhor,” Stoyan said, frowning, “you have made it clear you do not intend to set us ashore along the way. That means Paula and I must accompany you to this destination. There seems to me no reason to withhold its name from us.”

“Paula is a merchant’s daughter,” Duarte said. “She came on board my ship clad in a disguise. Maybe she’s on the Esperança for the reason she gave me, incoherent as it was. Maybe it’s pique at being outbid combined with concern for her father’s predicament. Maybe it’s more. Until I know that, I don’t plan to confide any secrets. Not in the lady, and not in you, since it is blindingly clear to me that you would jump through fire for her.”

A muscle twitched at Stoyan’s temple. I heard him draw a deliberate breath, as if to stop himself from answering in anger.

“So you don’t trust me, Senhor Duarte,” I said quickly. “The feeling is mutual. I’ll make this easier for you. I noticed a certain lack of surprise on your face when you saw the artifact for the first time. You remained cool and calm when I announced that half of it was missing. Answer me one question: Did you already know it was broken? Do you know where the other half is?”

“That’s two questions.” Duarte was smiling. He had the ability to look entirely charming even when he was in his most adversarial mood. “If I answer yes and yes, will you believe me?”

So Irene had guessed right about him. “How did you find out? Documentation about Cybele’s Gift is as scarce as hen’s teeth.” There were, of course, the papers I had found, but I suspected an uncanny hand had set those before me.

“You are not the only scholar in the world, Paula,” Duarte said smoothly. I could tell he was holding something back.

“You said something about returning the artifact to its original owners. Who are they? Have they paid you to acquire it for them?”

Duarte laughed, though I could not see anything funny about it. “They are hardly in a position to do so. Let us simply say that I owe a debt and that I am repaying that debt. I’m on a mission. I don’t plan to give you the details; at least, not yet. You’ll have to earn my trust first.”

A mission. Mine, Stoyan’s, Tati’s. The forest queen had said nothing about Duarte. All the same, it rang true for me. I remembered that Tati had helped me reach the ship. In fact, Tati had been on the ship the first time I had seen her black-robed form.

Duarte addressed Stoyan rather pointedly. “Why don’t you go up and stretch your legs awhile? It’s cramped here, especially for a man of your build. You could find your mistress something to eat. Ask for Cristiano. He’s in charge of rations.”

Stoyan looked at me. Beneath the bandage, his face was paler than usual.

“I will stay with Paula until you return,” Duarte added. “I have no intention of harming her in any way, though I must confess to a strong urge to shake some of her prejudices out of her. No, no, don’t look like that. I won’t touch her, I swear. With you to answer to, not one of the Esperança’s crew would dare look at her in the wrong way, and that includes the captain.”

“Go on, Stoyan,” I said. “We’re going to have to sample this dried meat sometime. Don’t ask them what kind it is. I’d rather not know.”

I could see Stoyan thinking, weighing up the relative dangers of leaving me alone here with Duarte and taking me up on deck, where I would be visible to the Esperança’s crew. He left, looking anything but willing.

“Well, now,” Duarte said, sitting down again by the small table that held his charts, “are we going to continue fighting, or shall we attempt some kind of truce?”

“You still have questions to answer—” I began, but Duarte waved a hand, hushing me.

“Not now. We will only argue, and I am weary of that. Once we drop anchor for the night, we must quench all lights on board, the better to remain invisible to certain eyes. Until then, perhaps you and I might engage in some other activity, one that will not have us at each other’s throats.”

A prickle of unease crept across my flesh. “What activity?” I asked, trying for the sort of tone Irene might have employed in a similar situation.

“I could teach you a game,” he suggested with an expression that could only be described as wicked, all dimples and snapping dark eyes.

Out of my depth already, I struggled not to make my misgivings too obvious. “I’m not sure I’d care for your sort of games, senhor.”

“Call me Duarte; you did before. Forget the teaching, then. Tell me what games you already know, and we will try one of those.”

“Chess?” I had already observed a board and pieces amongst his things when I went through them in the hunt for clothing.

Duarte grinned. It was the fierce, combative smile he had used in the çarşi. “Done,” he said, crouching to retrieve the set from the small chest where it was stored. “I warn you, I’m good. I’ve been playing since you were a babe in swaddling.”

“Then I imagine you will defeat me before Stoyan returns with our supper,” I said demurely. “How convenient. I’m sorry I won’t be able to offer you a challenging bout.”

“Ah, well, perhaps that is best. Otherwise we may fight again.”

“Oh, I don’t fight when I play,” I said. “Getting the emotions involved is not at all appropriate. A cool head is the thing.”

I saw the flash of his teeth. “Then I will certainly beat you, Paula. You’re incapable of keeping your temper for more than the space of a few breaths.”

I refused to be baited. “Black or white?” I asked him calmly.

“For a villain such as Duarte da Costa Aguiar, it must be black, of course. For an innocent maiden held captive on a pirate ship, pure white.”

We were just getting into the game when Stoyan returned, bearing a platter of food. I was playing carefully, wanting to show enough skill to keep Duarte interested but avoiding any displays of expertise. I planned to trap him at a far later stage and thereby secure a victory. He was good, certainly: an experienced player, as he had said. But he was far beneath the folk who had shared the scholars’ table with me in the Other Kingdom. They had taught me a rare assortment of strategies and tricks; they had trained me to see far ahead and to read my opponent’s subtlest gesture, his faintest sigh.

“You play well,” Duarte said grudgingly. “We should pause awhile and eat. Is there sufficient here for three?”

Stoyan set the platter down without comment. I exercised my teeth on the chewy strips of meat and managed a few bites of hard-baked bread. The olives were the only thing worth eating. I finished my share in unseemly haste, for it had been a long time since Irene’s sweetmeats. What would Irene think of my current predicament? She’d be shocked, certainly. She’d also tell me I had only myself to blame for disregarding her warnings about the charming Senhor Aguiar.

Duarte ate steadily, no doubt long accustomed to sailors’ fare.

“You’re not eating, Stoyan,” I said, noticing how pale he still was. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I am sure, kyria. This man Cristiano tells me we will soon be at our anchorage for the night. You will wish privacy to prepare for sleep.”

“Not quite yet,” Duarte said. “I need to win the game first.”

“I don’t suppose that will take you long,” I said with a sweet smile that brought a suspicious frown to his face. “Stoyan, you may as well go to the cabin next door and lie down. Chess is boring to watch if you don’t know how to play.”

Stoyan’s features tightened. “I will stay,” he said, and settled on the floor again. The size of the cabin meant he could not quite stretch out his legs. He looked uncomfortable in more ways than one, but I decided not to press the point.

As the game advanced, I became more and more absorbed. So, it seemed, did my opponent. Knights, rooks, bishops, and pawns fell and were removed from the board. Strategies were put into play and countered. Once or twice I was aware of Stoyan asking if we were nearly finished and Duarte murmuring something in return. At a point when I was beginning to set up my endgame, Stoyan observed that the ship had stopped moving and that we should surely be quenching the lantern, since he had been told all lights on board were to be extinguished once we reached our mooring. “Not yet,” I muttered, moving a critical piece into play. A little later, Pero came to the door, said something in Portuguese, and at a murmur from Duarte left us.

And somewhat after that, I won the game. It was only then, looking up with a triumphant grin and surprising an unguarded smile of pure delight on Duarte’s aquiline features, that I realized how quiet it was. Stoyan had his head tipped back against the wall; he was half asleep. The Esperança was at anchor, and beyond our door, all I could hear was the gentle creak of the timbers and the faint wash of the sea. The last time I had been so caught up in the thrill of a true intellectual challenge had been six whole years ago—the night I made my final farewell to the Other Kingdom.

With each day that passed on board the Esperança, I felt guiltier. Looking back, I could hardly believe I had acted so rashly. Father would be distraught. I imagined him using up all our profits in mounting a fruitless search for me. I thought of him sinking into a decline. At the same time, I found myself glancing into odd corners of the ship, wondering when Tati was going to make another appearance and give me some clear instructions as to what exactly I was supposed to be doing. For, despite my guilt and anxiety, I felt in my bones the certainty that Stoyan and I were exactly where the powers of the Other Kingdom wanted us to be. We had begun our quest.

Duarte relaxed his rules. I was allowed up on deck, except at times when the crewmen were under particular pressure and needed to be without distractions. He showed me where I could sit or stand and not be in the way. I obeyed his instructions, understanding that on a ship the captain’s word is law and it is foolhardy to disregard it. I knew next to nothing about sailing. I tried to learn by observation how things worked: the sails in particular, with their complex arrangement of ropes and the different deployment of them in varying conditions.

Many of the crewmen spoke some Greek, Turkish, or French, and they put these together to answer my questions or invite me to learn a certain knot or help haul on a particular rope. They were indulging me in the latter. My strength was puny by comparison with that of the slightest of them, but they congratulated me heartily and, after a day or two, took to singing a certain ditty as they worked:

Paula, de brancura singela

Faz corar uma rosa

Gaivota graciosa, do navio

Marinheira mais bela!

I heard Stoyan and Duarte arguing about it later. Duarte was assuring my guard that there was nothing at all ribald in it and that it was the kind of song a man might make up about his little sister. He would never, Duarte declared, allow crude comments about a lady like Mistress Paula on board the Esperança. The crew knew he would have their guts for garters if they tried anything of the sort.

I could not help noticing that Duarte was regularly seeking me out. That surprised me. It seemed we had managed to outrun the pursuing vessel as our captain had intended, for she had not been sighted. But we were in a race of sorts, with Duarte keen to reach landfall and move on before there was any chance of the Mufti’s crew spotting where he was headed.

A mountain pass, he’d said. That sounded difficult. I knew from my studies of geography that there were high mountains quite close to the shore at the eastern end of the Black Sea. I judged we were still a long way short of that region. In view of the urgency, it was odd that Duarte so often found time to stand beside me on deck, explaining how far we had traveled and telling me the names of landmarks as we passed them. I asked him about something that was puzzling me.

“Isn’t it supposed to be unlucky to have a woman on board? On the Stea de Mare, I kept getting funny looks. But your men have made me welcome.”

Duarte smiled. “For a few memorable years, we had a woman amongst our crew. Carlota captains her own ship now; her name is much feared across the Mediterranean. My men have never forgotten the lessons she taught them. Besides, they understand that you are my guest.”

After dark he made a habit of coming down to the cabin for a game of chess or a conversation about politics or philosophy or literature. He had a strong grasp of the classics, and his knowledge of matters scientific was wider than mine. He was not so strong on mythology and folklore, which surprised me, since the object of his personal mission was a statue of Cybele. As I grew to know him better, I realized he was not quite the evildoer I had once believed him. He spoke of my father with such genuine respect that I became convinced that he was not responsible for that attack. It had been luck rather than violence that had enabled him to acquire Cybele’s Gift that morning. I stumbled through an apology for so misjudging him, and he told me to put it behind me. I toyed with the notion of telling him about Tati and the mysterious messages I had been receiving since the day I first arrived in Istanbul, but I held back. Maybe there was some genuine feeling for me hidden in his smooth flattery, but he didn’t trust me. He still hadn’t told me where we were going. He still hadn’t said why after paying good money for Cybele’s Gift, he seemed to be planning to give it away.

Of course, there were times when the Esperança’s crew, expert as they were, needed their captain’s guidance, and to keep those times from passing too slowly, I prevailed upon Stoyan to let me continue his reading lessons. As my ankle and his arm were both now completely recovered, Stoyan in his turn worked on my skills in unarmed combat. This was made easier by my new outfit of practical trousers and tunic. I was certain Stoyan would not have allowed either reading or combat lessons had he not disapproved so strongly of the interest Duarte was showing in me. It was harmless, of course—something Duarte did without even thinking. It meant absolutely nothing. I tried to explain this to Stoyan but got tangled up in words.

“He likes books,” I said. “He likes talking about ideas. I don’t suppose there are many men in the crew who enjoy doing that; they’re probably all so tired at the end of a shift that they want nothing more than a platter of that miserable dried meat and a few hours’ sleep. Duarte likes games, and I’m good at them.”

“His motives cannot be so simple.” Stoyan’s tone was grimly judgmental. “He wants something from you, Paula.”

“I just happen to be here and able to entertain him, that’s all. He means nothing by it. As soon as this voyage is over, he will forget all about me, Stoyan.”

“You cannot read the look in his eyes.”

“And you can?” I challenged, exasperated with his edginess. I wished he would go off and help sail the ship.

Stoyan did not answer, and when I looked at him, there was such a closed expression on his strong features that I glanced quickly away. I remembered Duarte saying: You would jump through fire for her. At the time, I had thought this a flowery Portuguese overstatement. Now I was not so sure.

By afternoon on the third day, Stoyan had memorized the Greek alphabet and could inscribe all the letters. We improvised a sand tray, since there was a supply on board as a first precaution against fire. We wrote and erased and wrote again. We usually performed the task in the cabin, since the deck was too windy for such a delicate activity.

At first, there were frequent interruptions. When Duarte saw what we were doing, he raised his brows in apparent astonishment, making spots of color appear on Stoyan’s cheeks. Pero was fascinated and wanted a turn. Others followed; had time permitted, I could have provided the Portuguese pirate ship with the most literate crew to be found anywhere between Istanbul and Lisbon. The cabin was small, and I could tell Stoyan was acutely uncomfortable performing his tasks under any scrutiny other than mine. I shooed the others away with assurances that I would teach them another time.

Then there were the lessons in which I was the pupil. I perfected the technique for escaping an assailant who grabbed me from behind. I learned an unpleasant move involving a kick to a certain part of a man’s anatomy, but I refused to practice this on Stoyan. I began to understand that the relative strengths of a pair of opponents were not the determinants of who would prevail. He taught me to use my adversary’s superior size against him.

“This is much more complicated than I thought,” I panted, every part of me aching with effort after an attempt to bring Stoyan down by edging him just slightly off balance so he would fall at a subtle push to the back of the knee combined with a particular grip on the wrist. “I thought it was a simple matter of brute force. I didn’t expect to have to calculate exactly the right way to stand or the perfect spot to push.”

“You learn quickly,” Stoyan said, bending to pick up my sash, which had come undone during our contest. “Our audience does not disturb your concentration?”

I followed his glance and spotted five or six seamen clustered at a vantage point above us. Our activities must have made an entertaining diversion from their daily work. Embarrassed, I looked away, wrapping the sash around my waist over Duarte’s tunic, which was getting rather grubby. “At least they’re not singing now,” I said.

“I have heard this Paula song, but I do not know its meaning. I hope the words are not offensive.”

I felt very awkward. “Paula, of a natural pallor, makes a rose blush,” I muttered, not meeting his eye. “Graceful seagull, the prettiest sailor on our ship. Duarte translated it for me.”

“I see,” Stoyan said. “Well, it is accurate. But these sailors see only the outer beauty; their verse says nothing of your courage, Paula, nor of your honesty and strength. This is a beauty far deeper than the blush of a rose.” Without another word, he turned and headed off toward the cabin, leaving me speechless.

Before dusk, a crewman spotted the sails of a three-master behind us, rusty red against the slate gray of the sky. He called to Pero, who swore and fetched Duarte. It didn’t matter that Stoyan and I could not understand what they were saying. It was clear the pursuer was on our tail.

Commands rang out, and men moved efficiently to obey, climbing masts, putting on extra sail, doing what could be done to make speed before night fell. I was ordered below, and obeyed. Stoyan remained on deck, a useful extra hand. Alone in the cabin, I sat on the bunk as the ship gained speed, rolling as she went. What would happen if we were boarded? Would Stoyan come down to protect me or fall in some bloody encounter above my head, leaving me as prey for an attacker? I eyed the bound strongbox that housed Cybele’s Gift. Suddenly, this seemed an awful lot of fuss for one little statue.