“Thank you master Judah, I know the one. I will leave you to your work now, and call again in a few days to finalise the transaction.”
The old man nodded and held out the paper. “Take this with you. I want nothing to do with whatever it means.”
Skiouros took the paper and stuffed it into his doublet, bowed, and left the room almost vibrating with excitement. In his hand was as much money as he’d ever owned at one time, and he could anticipate perhaps twenty times that amount in a few days. He had enough to buy new boots, pay his rent, eat well all week and with plenty of change to spare. He knew for certain that Ben Isaac had seriously short-changed him and that his haul was likely worth at least twice as much, but there was simply no alternative channel for such a take and it was better to be certain of a small fortune than to jeopardise a large one.
He barely noticed the hulking David as he left and made his way back up the slope towards the Phanar district; indeed, it only occurred to him as he passed the edge of the Jewish residences that he had dropped the ornate leather purse on the table in the house and neglected to retrieve it before he left.
Ben Isaac had been singularly reticent in revealing the contents of the note, and the fact preyed on Skiouros’ mind as he climbed towards the street where his rented rooms were to be found. Admittedly, anything that might link him to a Mamluk spy in these days of strife was a serious danger to life and limb, but still the old man’s reaction had seemed a little over the top.
Walking steadily towards the house, he remembered that his primary goal should be a cobbler and turned around, heading for the road which would lead him to the Mese, the great central street that split the city and formed part of the edge of the Greek enclave. There would be many boot sellers on the Mese, some with expensive Italian footwear as well as the soft, yielding Turkish garb.
And then, when he’d returned and paid his board, he would go to the Dionysus taverna on the corner near the ‘Dry Garden’, have a solid meal and a few flasks of good, strong, imported Bulgarian ale while he pondered what to do about this mysterious piece of paper and the address named upon it.
Chapter 2 – The house of the yellow marble columns
* Çarsamba (Wednesday) evening *
Skiouros tapped the gold coin on the surface of the table, eyeing his used dinner plate with slightly blurred contentment. The lamb had been succulent and well sauced, and the olives and spiced bread fresh and piquant. He’d often watched wealthier occupants of the taverna eating the owner’s best fare and wondered what it tasted like, given the wondrous aromas. Now he knew. It would be hard to go back to eating the ordinary rubbish that he accepted: offcuts and left overs, reheated meat and stale bread that cost a fraction of that of the taverna’s better food. But return to his old ways he would have to. He had made a small fortune from this haul, but there was no guarantee that the near future would be as good to him, and to squander such a reward on a few good meals was tempting providence.
No. Perhaps once a week he might treat himself to a quality dish. Plus, of course, he had his new boots. Glancing down beneath the table, he took in the fine fawn leather of Florentine origin, the pointed toe and the folded top. They were exquisite, though they would take some breaking in and would pinch for a few days.
On his return journey, he had seen a tailor on the Mese with a slashed black doublet of Italian manufacture that he would dearly love, but which would have to wait until the rest of his payment showed up, as would a fresh linen shirt and new braes and hose. But the boots were a good start.
Reaching across the table, he grasped the ale and almost missed, his fingers scrabbling at the bottleneck and righting it just before it rolled over. Three empty flasks lay nearby, testament to his celebratory evening.
There had been gambling and games of chance in the taverna’s main room, and he’d been sorely tempted to try his hand, or even to lighten a purse or two the easy way, but had forced himself to sit in virtual solitude at a shadowed table in the corner. He had drunk too much for that kind of escapade and he knew it. The temptation was evidence enough: one should never shit on one’s own doorstep, as they said, and to consider it was all the proof he needed that he ought to stop drinking.
But he could ne’er afford to waste ale, even with spare coin in his purse, and it would be a criminal act in itself to abandon such a good brew. Grinning to himself at his logic, he tipped the last of the ale down his throat, splashing some of it down his chin and onto his doublet. Ah well. In a few days he would have a fine, new doublet.
Common sense still floated on the lake of ale in his head, and he knew that the longer he stayed intoxicated and in such a place, the more chance there was of something going wrong, or of him trying something stupid.
Sliding his chair back from the table, he stood slowly and swayed for a moment. Fresh air and a walk. That was what he needed.
Slowly and very deliberately, he moved the chair safely out of the way and turned towards the door. Oil lamps lit the tavern’s interior in much the same fashion as they had since the days of the pagan emperors, but the doorway was illuminated by two flaming torches just without, one to each side, and the heady smell of the burning pitch was starting to infiltrate the main room, having been burning for over an hour now since sundown.
Carefully, so as not to cause undue attention, he moved towards the door, concentrating as though walking a rope like the acrobats at festivals. One foot in front of the other, time and again until he was outside. It was half a good thief’s task to build a shell of complete ordinariness to the point of becoming almost invisible. Drawing attention to oneself was tantamount to surrendering to the authorities.
His head fizzing gently with intoxication, he strolled out of the door without the slightest wobble and into the chilly night time air of the city. The cold hit his brain like a block of marble, sending the ale pulsing round his body and infusing every inch of him. He was suddenly dangerously unbalanced, but knew that it would begin to wear off soon. Fresh air brought it all to an immediate head, making the effects worse temporarily, but speeding the recovery no end. Better this way than the long drawn out lie-down in the warm.
Just in case, he moved diagonally across the road and leaned against the wooden wall of the house opposite, pausing long enough to gain a semblance of sobriety. A rainwater barrel stood at the building's end and he reached in and scooped up a few chilly mouthfuls with his hands.
Which way to go?
Perhaps he could visit Lykaion and try and patch things up?
Stupid! He knew damn well that there was no chance of that, particularly in this state. Besides, it would be more or less suicidal to wander up to the Janissary barracks. Normally he passed a message inside with one of the numerous new recruits or slaves who attended the everyday chores of the complex. Such would not be possible at night.
Stupid even to think about it.
He could just go for a walk – stroll around Phanar and Balat, or even into the Ottoman area. While there were distinctive living regions for the non-Turkish residents of the city, there was no physical boundary and Greek subjects could quite legally move through the rest of the city, providing they were not visibly armed and paid due deference and respect to any Turk they encountered.
He considered the possibility.
Every week or two he would spend a day and an evening wandering the city, getting to know its byways and streets, its great civic buildings and open spaces. It was good to be acquainted with the place in detail, and over the eight years he had been doing so he liked to think there were few places within the city walls that he didn’t have a reasonable geographical grasp of.
The only downside of such an outing was the inherent danger of being a foreigner in the Ottoman regions. While Sultan Bayezid the Second may be ‘just’, most of his citizens were ‘just’ capable of tolerating the Greeks as long as they kept to their own quarter. It was not even uncommon to hear of a Greek merchant making a delivery to an Ottoman household to have bee
n beheaded for ‘acting in an offensive manner’ to a Turk. Such acts sometimes included walking and breathing.
Still, the non-Turkish population should thank providence that such a man as Bayezid did rule the city. It was said of his brother that he had boiled men in oil for delivering his food cold. And in the interests of a fair view, Skiouros' own grandfather had told tales of the Byzantine emperors that had horrified him as a child: beheadings, blindings, roastings, impalings and so much more, and that to their own kind!
Still, Ottoman Istanbul was too dangerous; out of the question for tonight.
Leaning against the wooden house, he fumbled in his pocket and withdrew the scrap of paper, lifting it to the vague glow of the burning torches opposite as though that would somehow give him the ability to interpret the strange, snake-like scribbles upon it.
The Street of the Hercules Statue.
He knew it well - well enough even to picture the house in the address. Somewhere around halfway along the street stood a house that was somewhat unusual in the area, its lower courses formed of old Byzantine or Roman brick with timber above. Two huge columns of golden-coloured marble stood flanking the door, supporting a wooden porch. It was an interesting building, though nothing more than a house, for sure. Too poor and wooden to be the residence of the wealthy, albeit a single house rather than a shared residence like those that covered much of the city.
Well, he could at least take a look at the place.
With the confidence of the slightly inebriated he straightened and strode off down the street. His sense of direction unimpaired by his condition, he strode through the streets of the Phanar district, paying no heed to the numerous folk still abroad despite the cold. Turning corners here and there, he soon found himself at the small church of Saint John the Forerunner, from which led the street named on the paper.
The church, tiny even for one of the multitude crammed into the ancient city, stood as a small apsed cross no more than fifty or sixty feet across and with a circular tower, all formed of the traditional decorative brick and stone that was to be seen in public buildings all over Constantinople. At the side of the church by the small apsidal end stood the statue for which the street was named.
No one knew where the 'Hercules' had come from originally, and there was little about it to definitively confirm such an appellation, but some enterprising early Christian had chipped away whatever the statue had originally held and replaced it with a large wooden crucifix, which it still held after all this time. The statue appeared to be glaring at him, or possibly at the street to which he had come. A shudder ran up his spine.
If he were a man given to superstition or fear of the divine, he would turn and flee right now. After all, a Jew, a witch and now an ancient God had all apparently tried to urge him away from the place.
“Stick it in your back passage, Hercules!” he snapped quietly at the statue and shrugged his shoulders against the chill, turning away and striding down the street. He was starting to feel a tension at his temples and the rising pressure in the centre of his skull that suggested his hangover was going to be visiting him early - a consequence of the fresh air and exercise combined with his imbibing.
This street was deserted as he made his way down it. Despite lying in the heart of the Greek region, the thoroughfare itself and all the others that surrounded it were entirely residential, and little activity would be found outdoors of a cold autumn evening.
Wooden housing fronted onto the street as it did the entire district and most of the city, though many of those to be found here were individual houses rather than the conglomerate structures housing a dozen families that covered the lower slopes leading down towards Balat and the river.
Slowly, a sense of wariness beginning to build within him, Skiouros moved down the street, strikingly aware of just how alone he was. After only a few moments he could see the marble pillars on the house near the centre, glowing in reflected moonlight among the dark and seasoned timbers.
Was he being stupid? Reckless?
Certainly the ale was informing his decisions tonight. Sober, he would have waited until morning. He knew himself well enough not to even pretend that he would have left the place alone and ignored the note entirely, but he would certainly have waited until a more sensible time presented itself. But the same natural inquisitiveness that meant he would never be able to pass off the note and its address as unimportant had been magnified by alcohol and now refused to let his mind leave the subject he'd fixated upon.
With a wariness that belied his inebriation, he slowed as he approached the house and came to a halt opposite the door with its grand columns, leaning against a wooden wall and watching the house that was the subject of the paper scrap.
Despite the slight idiosyncrasies in its architecture, the house was in no way out of the ordinary. Four windows were visible from the front, as well as an opening below the roof, and the houses were so tightly packed lining the street here that there was not even room for a man to squeeze between them; in many cases houses that had settled and sagged were even leaning against their neighbours for support. Only one window had any sign of life: a flickering golden glow in an upstairs room barely showing behind heavy curtains that were drawn most of the way across.
Skiouros watched the building for some time, wondering, now that he'd actually come here, what he was supposed to do about it? To knock, or even to enter, was strange and probably stupid. Doubtless the occupant was expecting someone today and that person would either already have visited or would bear no resemblance to him. Either way, he would find himself speechless, uncomfortable and in trouble when the door opened.
But the door was open…
His eyes began to pick out details as the realisation started to bring him forcibly back to sobriety. The thumping in his head receded as his brain began to function at a higher level once again. Sometimes inebriation could be killed off simply by surprise.
The door was ajar, rather than wide open; hardly inviting visitors. Sometimes, in the heat of a hot Propontian summer, when the flies made the evening air unbearable and the smell of warm dung filled the streets, the people of the city would leave their doors ajar at night to cool their houses, but the weather was hardly stifling at this time of year, and a draft would be chilling the room within.
An accident, then?
Something was tremendously wrong with the situation and alarms were triggering all through Skiouros. 'Run' his subconscious urged him.
He took a step towards the house, feeling the hairs rise on the back of his neck. His expert gaze took in more points that alarmed him as he took three further steps into the middle of the street.
The door was creaking and moving slightly with the chill wind, but in a specific and odd fashion. The wind blew down the street, hitting the outer face of the door and trying to slam it shut, but something small must be caught in it, as the portal bounced slightly with each gust and returned to its slightly-open state.
Within, a thin, low glow of golden light at ground level suggested a light source stood on the floor just out of sight around the corner from the door. The chances of that being a purposeful decision were tiny. A fallen light; a jammed, half-open door. Not good signs.
'Run!'
Skiouros clamped down on his subconscious urge to flee the scene and took a few steps further towards the creaking door. The owner of the house was far from poor. Three yards from the entrance, he could see the felt lining on the inside of the door as an additional draft-proofing and the expensive Anatolian rug that led from the entrance into the room.
So… a person living in the Greek enclave in a modest but private house, but with notably costly furnishings; someone to whom the interior of their residence was more important than the exterior. If the owner had been more conservative with their furnishings, they could have perhaps afforded one of the few brick or stone buildings that were warmer and more stable and fire-proof than the wooden ones.
Anonymity was the goal, pe
rhaps? He had walked past this house countless times in his eight years of city life and only really noticed it in terms of architecture - the lower courses of brick and the twin columns. It had never occurred to him that it might be anything more than a simple residence the same as all the others.
There was plainly no point in trying to fight the curiosity any more.
With a deep breath and a quick glance up and down the street to check for observers, he stepped up to the door and grasped the edge, slowly pulling it open and wincing at the creak and the tiny squeal that issued from it.
A quick glance in, and he ducked to the side, not allowing long enough for any occupant to get a good look at his face or to aim a weapon, but long enough for a brief appraisal of the situation.
Empty.
The main room behind the creaking door was unoccupied and silent. A crude-oil-burning lamp, its tall glass chimney decorated with engraved tulip buds and Ottoman patterns, lay on the floor at an angle against a cushion, miraculously just right to keep the oil reservoir contained and the lamp burning. A lucky escape for the neighbourhood, for sure.
But other than the lamp, there did not appear at first glance to be any sign of disturbance or a struggle. A door led through into the rear of the house, while a narrow staircase led up to the next floor. The décor was quite startlingly expensive, and coloured silver, white and blue.
Skiouros leaned back against the wall beside the door, his heart pounding noisily in his own ears and the slight thump of his all-but forgotten headache blending in with it. Despite the ale, he'd never felt more sober. Amazing what a little nervous action could do. He'd still need to watch his step, though. His alertness and senses may be back in condition, but there would still be a sluggishness and unpredictability to any delicate activity.
Since no further sound or sign of movement issued from the room, Skiouros stepped back to the open doorway and peered inside, taking in more detail this time. A second door, almost out of sight behind the staircase, led to another area of the ground floor. A plush blue couch rested against the far wall of the room, cushions adorning it. There were three rugs in total on the floor and a small area in the corner was strewn with floor cushions, the oil lamp among them. Cupboards and desks dotted the periphery.
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