Pawn in Frankincense

by Dorothy Dunnett

  Next morning, awakened from light sleep by his servant’s touch, Jerott thought, without pleasure, that it was the same rotten business again. He had a headache, and no prospect of remaining anything but distressingly sober if he was to keep his self-willed companion in sight.

  But the news was not of Marthe’s imminent departure alone into the stews of Aleppo. Marthe, it seemed, had come to her senses. She wished, for her uncle’s sake, to view the merchandise in the covered bazaar and also to help with any inquiries which Mr Blyth might be making in pursuit of the child. If Mr Blyth felt he could dispense with his Janissaries, she, Marthe, would dispense with her Arab clothing and confide herself to his protection dressed a la Christianesca for the day.

  It was a stilted surrender, and the pricking of his senses should have warned him. As it was, he sent off a cordial message of agreement, while reserving the right, childishly, as a bonus for trouble taken, to retain one Janissary if he jolly well wanted.

  With their Janissary, scimitared and white-capped behind them, Jerott and Marthe explored Aleppo. He had some officials to visit whom the attaché had suggested, but all the detailed investigation was already under way, he knew, through the tortuous channels known best to the Consulate. To be walking from alley to alley, and meeting people, and asking the same stupid questions was only a method of keeping busy, of stifling one’s restlessness; of persuading oneself that one was here for some good; that a life might be saved if one worked hard enough.

  And at his side throughout, there was Marthe … quick-witted and intuitive, articulate and thoughtful. He had loved her for her beauty and for an excellence with which he was already familiar. That day, engrossed together in the fate of the child, he met her mind to mind and fell in love with her, with every grain of his spirit and cell of his body; with the essential finality of death.

  If Marthe knew of it, she gave no sign. It was she who found the tekke, the house of the dervishes; and, standing under the gateway, said, ‘Of course Islam is anathema to you. But in some things, my faith and yours are not far apart. The Bektashi think that the fervent practice of worship engenders in the soul graces; and that in the science of hearts the soul may procure wisdom.… I have a favour to ask.’

  ‘Ask it,’ said Jerott.

  ‘This is a Bektashi tekke: a place where the dervishes gather for worship and instruction. They do not mind the presence of infidels, nor do they forbid women. Will you allow me to take you inside?’

  ‘The Janissary——’ Jerott began.

  ‘The Janissary cannot enter. Mr Blyth, these are holy men sworn to contemplative and utter humility; dedicated to tolerance and devoted to love. The Way is one, they say: the Form is many. There is nothing to fear in a tekke of the Bektashi Order.’

  ‘It sounds,’ said Jerott, ‘as if they have some of the right ideas. All right. Let’s go in.’

  Inside, as they stood shoes in hand, stockinged feet deep in soft carpets and the leather curtain whispering shut just behind them, the darkness was almost complete. The place seemed large. Motionless, his hand on Marthe’s arm beside him, Jerott became aware of the echoing murmur of many voices, muted by hangings, from each side and before him: the air was filled with spice and frankincense, and the sweet, snuffed odour of new, deep-piled carpets, and the churchly smell of warm wax.

  They stood, he then saw, in a little vestibule, its walls tiled with glimmering tablets of ultramarine and white and a strong Venetian red. A text, in gold, sprang to life in a flicker of candlelight: God saith: I was a hidden treasure and I desired to be known; so I took a handful of my light and said unto it, ‘Be thou my beloved Mohammed.’

  The candle went out. Beyond Marthe, there was a movement. Smoothly, she began to walk forward. Under his hand, her arm was quite cool and relaxed. He moved forward with her. A candle flickered.

  The law is my words. The way is my actions. Knowledge is my chief of all things. Truth or reality is my spiritual state.…

  I am he who has the keys of the unknown. No one after Mohammed knows them except me. And I know all things. I am the first and second blasts of the trumpet at the resurrection.

  I have put five things into five things. Having all, I have put knowledge and wisdom in hunger; do not search for them in satiety. I have put riches in contentment with little: do not search for them in avarice. I have put happiness in knowledge. Do not search for it in ignorance.

  Before the last text, a great candle had been lit, as tall as Marthe, gilding the calligrapher’s beautiful whorls.

  On my head is the Crown of High Estate. In my eyebrow is the Pen of Power; in my eye is the light of saintship; in my ear is the call to prayer of Mohammed; in my nose is the fragrance of Paradise; in my mouth is the confession of faith; in my breast is the Qur’ân of wisdom; in my hand is the hand of the Ever-Living God;-around my waist is the girdle of the right guidance; on my tongue is the confession; in my feet is service; at my back is the appointed time of death; before me is my lot in life.

  In the radiance of the candle Jerott turned. They were, he saw, in what seemed to be an antechamber to the main hall of the tekke: before them hung another curtain, not this time of leather, but of dark blue and green velvet, with gold and coloured Kufic inscriptions wrought in silks at the foot. Beside him stood Marthe, her hair veiled, her long Western gown covered by a loose white linen robe. Before him, turbaned and immaculate in white, stood a Bektashi dervish, proffering a similar robe, folded, over his arms. ‘May thy light be exalted light, Efendi,’ said the dervish. ‘Though thou dost not serve Him whom I serve, nor do I serve that which you serve, yet doth the Baba bid thee enter the meydan, for the sake of the believer who comes with thee. Robe thyself. Robe thyself, and thank not me, but Him who is the Opener of Doors.’

  Jerott stared at the dark, smiling face. He knew it. He had seen this man before. Where? When?

  And then he had it. A beggar sitting crosslegged in the sand, his hair hung matted and black round his shoulders; his naked body covered with ash. It was the Bektashi dervish who had directed them to Mehedia.

  Jerott glanced once at Marthe’s composed, unreadable face; and then followed her, tight-lipped, into the meydan.

  The hall was large and oblong in shape, its outer confines hidden in darkness; and the ceremony, some kind of ritual of worship and initiation, had already begun. Taking his place as directed to sit crosslegged against the wall beside Marthe Jerott saw that the place appeared to be lined with robed and turbaned men and not a few women, watching like himself the centre of the meydan where, spaced out on sheepskins over the carpeted floor, the Baba and dervishes sat. At the far end of the room, lit by symbolic candles of odd moulds, stood an empty throne on a high, four-stepped dais, with ritual objects of brass and silver placed on each stair, and behind it, written in gold: There is no God but Allah; Mohammed is the Prophet of God; Ali is the Saint of God. There was a smell of rose-geranium and jasmine, mixed with the metal odour of freshly spilled blood.

  A sacrifice? Perhaps. Jerott’s hand, under his robe, moved to the place where his sword should have been, and then reassured itself that the knife he had hidden was there still, strapped inside his sleeve. Franks were not permitted to wear weapons abroad in towns under Suleiman’s rule. Suleiman, they said, was a Bektashi, and a Bektashi Baba stood at the right hand of the Agha of Janissaries at Constantinople. Jerott did not look again at Marthe. Unclasping his cramped fists he sat, as loosely as he could, and watched, in the darkness, for danger.

  The initiates, it seemed, came in barefoot, and singly, each kneeling first with his two hands on the sacred threshold, and kissing each hand in turn. This one was a middle-aged man. He approached the chief Baba, the Mürsit on his sheepskin on the left of the throne and performed the full niyaz; the prostration, kissing the floor and then the right and left knee of the Baba and over his heart, thus forming a cross. Then came the ablution, seen before at every street corner, at every mosque fountain. The feet: It is an obligation required by the Mercif
ul, the Compassionate, to be cleansed of every instance of having walked in rebellious and mistaken paths. The face: Wipe thy face clean of the acts of disobedience which thou hast committed until now, and of the impure water of ungodliness with which thou hast been polluted.

  Jerott said to Marthe, ‘Do you pray? Do you turn to Mecca when the muezzin calls? I have never seen you.’

  Around them, as the ablution went on, a kind of ragged chorus had developed; a single phrase, repeated with vehemence over and over, punctuating the ritual: Allah Eyvallah; Allah Eyvallah; Allah Eyvallah. God, yes by God. ‘You may take it I pray,’ said Marthe softly, ‘as often as I have seen you at your devotions.’

  ‘Brother, arise.’ The cleansing was over. ‘In accordance with the rites of Mohammed, Ali awaken the candle of this soul.’

  The man getting to his feet before the Baba looked ill with nerves, Jerott thought. To a man of his faith, of course, it was probably the most important moment of his life. The Baba, settling round his waist some kind of woollen rope belt, did not smile, but he touched the man’s cheek, in passing, and the initiate, flushing, snatched and kissed the hem of his robe as he knelt. Jerott shifted uncomfortably. ‘May good things conquer: may evil things be repelled; may unbelievers be defeated; may evil speakers be ruined.… When we cry out for help, may they respond to our call.… In the name of the King; call upon Ali, the manifester of marvels.… O best of those who help … O overturner of hearts and minds … the rites of our Lord, our Patron Saint, Sovereign Haji Bektash Veli …

  ‘God: there is no God but He. Everything shall perish except His face! Judgement is His, and to Him ye shall return.’

  They were chanting. The initiate was trembling: his nasal voice, following the Mürsit’s, hurried, stumbling on the words. ‘From the soul and by the tongue with love, I have become the servant of the Family of the Mantle … I have awakened from the sleep of indifference; I have opened the eye of my soul … The East and the West is God’s, therefore whichever way ye turn, there is the face of God.’

  Someone got up and, lifting the big engraved copper bowl from the steps of the throne, removed the lid, together with a small oval stone which had lain on it. It appeared to be full of something … blood? Jerott could not see, and Marthe, obviously, was not going to be informative. It was passed round the dervishes, beginning with the Baba, and ending with the cupbearer himself, the picturesque chords of speech broken by sips until the text and the circle were complete. There was soft movement in the darkness to each side of the throne and turbaned servants, moving noiselessly on the carpets, began to make their way among the dervishes and into the outer confines of the room. The smell of warm, seasoned food, and another familiar whiff, which Jerott could have sworn came from some form of alcohol, began to seep into the air.

  The big bowl had been refilled. The Cupbearer, making full niyaz to the Baba again, kissed his two knees and offered him the cup, his thumb laid along its edge. The Baba took it in the same way, the cupbearer kissing the thumb of the Baba and being at the same time himself kissed by the Baba, who then closed his eyes and for a moment held the bowl to the fine white linen of his breast, his lips moving in prayer before drinking.

  The bowl was removed. Another dervish, kneeling, unfolded before the Baba and set up a small stool, placing in the slung straps of its top a large shallow brass bowl of food, in which he laid a spoon, its face down. The Baba ate, and taking from a third man a folded napkin of white silk, embroidered in violet silk calligraphy, he wiped his lips. A murmur ran through the hall. The Baba put the spoon to his mouth, and a second time wiped his lips; then a third time repeated the ritual. ‘Allah Eyvallah!’ said the man on Jerott’s left, and the cry was taken up from group to group of the spectators. ‘Allah Eyvallah! Allah Eyvallah!’

  Moving heads extinguished Jerott’s view. All around him people were shifting, talking; groups were changing and re-forming; servants, pressing in among the mats and cushions, had trouble setting up tables and ferrying vessels in and out of the darkness which was no longer quite so dark, as candle after candle was lit round the walls and from the great hooped holders he now saw swaying in the hot scented currents over his head. Although the dervishes were still there, all the activity in the centre of the arena seemed to be unimportant and forgotten. The ceremony was over.

  Marthe’s face was flushed. She said, There is a special food, the aşure, they will bring first. You will not dislike it—it is made of raisins and almonds and dates and hazelnuts and such things. Then they will bring pilaf and other dishes.’

  ‘What were they drinking?’ said Jerott.

  She said, ‘The bowl is the holy vessel, the Meydan Tasi; and the stone he took from it was the Kanaat Tasi, the stone of contentment. The big candle with the twelve pleats, for the twelve Imams, is the Kanun Ciragi, with the three wicks representing God, Mohammed and Ali. The throne, of course, is the Throne of Mohammed. The Haji Bektash Veli was a very great man, born over three hundred years ago.’

  ‘He didn’t lack for imagination,’ said Jerott. ‘What were they drinking?’

  ‘In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. Lord, quench thy thirst.’ It was the dervish, the dervish of Mehedia, a drinking-bowl in his hands.

  ‘Mademoiselle?’ said Jerott. It looked like thickish, uncoloured water. She shook her head.

  ‘I am not thirsty. Taste it.’

  ‘What is it?’ said Jerott.

  ‘It is what the Baba drank. It is safe, Lord,’ said the dervish gravely, irony in his black eye, and lifting the bowl: ‘If the Efendi will permit, I shall sip from it.’

  And he drank too, while Jerott watched him, stonily showing no trace of humiliation or resentment, or of the gloom which enveloped him. The drink was almost certainly safe. He would probably get pleurisy, quinsy and pox from the cup. He took it back and sipped from the other side, holding the stuff in his mouth. The dervish moved on and spoke, bending, to Marthe before stepping away. In Jerott’s mouth, the liquid was sweetish and thick, and rather savourless. Harmless, anyway.

  He swallowed. ‘What did he say?’ And as he spoke the words the stuff roared down his throat, drawing a chariot and six horses and taking the lining of his soft palate with it. He broke off, his mouth shut, staring open-eyed at Marthe, and then said, thickly, ‘My God. What was that?’

  ‘Al yazil. Raki. You might call it a brandy,’ said Marthe. Her face was grave, as the dervish’s had been.

  ‘Brandy!’ said Jerott, his voice louder than it should have been both for safety and propriety. ‘I thought … Does no one read the Qur’ân here? What’s all the talk about Wine the Red Insane One? I thought every Moslem who drank went to hell?’

  ‘Wine,’ said Marthe softly. ‘We are forbidden wine. The Prophet said nothing of spirits. In any case, it is symbolic in the Bektashi Order. You have heard of the Bektashi breathings? The breath which they believe cures the flesh, and instils the spirit of God? The word for breath is also the word for wine, or raki: dem. The other name for the tekke is humhane, or wineshop. Bade is the word for wine made from fresh grapes. It also stands for divine love—the longing to know God and the joy of experiencing Him. We say, Askin dolnsnu tutor destinde: he holds the wine of love in his hand. Drink it.’

  Jerott looked down at the cup. ‘That stuff? I want my senses about me.’ But all the same, in his stomach, a small, comfortable fire had started to burn, and was flickering, wistfully; hoping for fuel.

  ‘Eat, then,’ said Marthe. ‘They are meant to go together. When you have eaten, you need have no fear of the raki.’

  It might have been true, had they not refilled his goblet so often. Marthe did not stop them, and after a while, since he remained so exquisitely clear-headed, he saw no point in confusing the cupbearers. By then they could hardly have heard him refuse, in any case, for the music had begun, from some source he could not quite make out; sinuous wind music, loosely serpentine like the golden verses sewn on the curtains and woven into the carpets: reedy
flute music, with the tinsel patter and throb of a corymb of drums. A man and a woman rose, prostrated themselves in front of the Baba, and started to dance. The arena cleared.

  The sheepskins had gone; the dervishes, seated crosslegged beside the Baba, cups in hand, swayed with the music and someone began to sing to it; a kind of chant which the others took up. ‘These are Nefes’es; the intonations,’ said Marthe. ‘The sound of them, with the special properties of the raki, leads to a state of spiritual ecstasy, and the desire to express this in dance. Others will follow.’

  There were a dozen figures already on the floor, dancing in pairs; man with woman, man with man. The figures were formal, and performed in deliberate sequence: a swaying of the body to right and to left, slowly with the surge of the music, then quickening fraction by fraction till, breathless, each dancer stopped.

  They stopped with their robes touching, their breasts heaving still with the effort. Then each put his or her left hand on the breast, bowed, and still bent, their heads close, they swung their arms rhythmically, hypnotically, to right and to left, again and again as the music wavered and pulsed.

  Jerott watched their faces. Of the dancers nearest him, the woman’s face, half hidden by the fall of her hair, was white and glazed with the heat. Her brows, raised with the effort, had creased her white skin into a thousand fine lines: Jerott could see water run down her temples, and the pulse there beginning to throb, as her skin darkened with the uprush of blood. Full of raki, full of exaltation, her head down, she swayed to and fro, her arms swinging like white silken chains.

  When the figure ended she staggered, and her partner, smiling, his eyes fixed, caught and steadied her: somewhere someone had fallen. More and more men had pressed in with the dancers. The music changed and, swaying, they began encircling the room. The music got quicker, and louder, and moving round, in a swirl of warmly fumed, linen-swathed bodies, of sweating skin and sinuous hands, close together couple by couple, each dancer began to revolve.