With a preparatory swallow and clearing of his throat, Skiouros stepped into the office.
"Good captain. Could I beg a moment of your time?" It was only as he fell silent that he realised he'd become so accustomed these past days to the automatic use of the Turkish tongue that he - a Greek - had automatically addressed a Venetian in it.
The sandy head lifted, and beleaguered, tired eyes fixed on him. For a moment Skiouros wondered whether the man had any Turkish, so he switched to Greek and repeated his opening comment.
"Yes?" the captain replied in good Greek with a southern, presumably Cretan, accent.
"I am seeking passage to Crete."
The captain looked his visitor up and down, sceptically.
"I don't have room for thieves, vagabonds and stowaways, and I have no space for extra crewmen working their passage. Paying travellers only, I'm afraid."
Skiouros sighed and gestured to his clothes with both hands.
"Do not let this garb form your opinion for you, Captain. I have more than moderate funds in the city; funds which I will be withdrawing this morning as soon as I am finished here. I can pay my way - on the clear assumption that your fee is not over-exorbitant, of course."
Again, the captain regarded him with shrewd eyes, calculating his worth.
"I take only akce and good Venetian ducats. The cost will be ten ducats for standard passage with hammock. Fifteen for a bed. Twenty five if you require a cabin - I have precious few."
Skiouros pursed his lips and folded his arms.
"I'll agree to the fifteen for a good bed, if you'll throw in the storage space for a sea chest. I note you have not mentioned luggage rates yet."
The captain grinned. "Can't pull the wool over a Turk's eyes, eh? Alright. Fifteen with a bed and luggage."
Skiouros wondered for a moment whether to explain that he was no Turk, but the fact that he was made up as one would raise even more questions and likely deny him passage, so he bit down on the words and nodded. The cinnamon stain would still colour his flesh for a week and by that time he could be in Crete before he apparently changed ethnicity again.
"When do you sail? I presume we've missed the morning tide."
"You don't know much about the sea, do you, lad."
When Skiouros looked at him blankly, the captain leaned back in his chair.
"You seen that storm out there? That, my lad, is what we in the trade call a 'bastard of a storm'. No sailor in his right mind would take a ship out in the face of that. I was due to sail on the morrow, but now, it seems we'll be trapped in port for a few days first." His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Unless you're in a hurry?"
Skiouros sagged.
"Not in the way you mean, captain, but I would rather leave before the storm."
The sailor laughed and leaned forward onto the table again.
"Not a chance, lad, I'm afraid. No ships will cross the Propontis now for days. Nothing will enter or leave port until the vizier fellow in charge of the harbours gives the 'all-clear'."
"I will have to decline then and find someone prepared to leave now."
"Are you not listening, lad?" the captain sighed. "No one will be leaving. Even if anyone here was insane enough to want to try, there's an imperial edict against it. As long as that vizier says so, the harbours stay closed and we're all stuck here. Why do you think there are so many seamen out in the tavern area getting drunk?"
Skiouros pinched the bridge of his nose. The world seemed to be conspiring against him today. Or was it Lykaion's ghost trying to keep him to his task?
"You still want passage?" the captain asked, tapping his fingers on the table.
"Possibly. I want to check out another possibility yet."
"Good luck with that, lad. I think you'll be sorely disappointed. When you come back for passage, if I've closed up shop here, find me on the 'Isabella', at the third jetty. Name's Parmenio."
"Thank you captain. God willing, I'll be long gone before then, but if I am as stuck as you seem to think I am, then I shall seek you out."
Captain Parmenio returned to his work, scouring the charts, only looking up once and shaking his head at the dispirited figure leaving his office.
Skiouros trod the boards back towards the door wearily, aware of the high likelihood that he would be forced to seek out the captain again. The problem there lay in the fact that, if the assassination of the Sultan went ahead today as the conspirators planned, there was a very real chance that all foreigners in the city would be locked up or executed, especially if Hamza Bin Murad was the man in charge of the aftermath. Would there be a captain and a ship to visit by the time the storm passed?
No. His one hope lay on the far side of the peninsular city.
The streets of Balat were deserted, the winds battering at Skiouros' back as he scurried along towards the stone frontage of the house of Judah Ben Isaac - an island of permanence and wealth in a poor wooden world. The door was shut and there was no sign of the hulking doorman, David. Such inaccessibility was anathema to the Jew's business, but with the storm the way it was it was hardly surprising that the door had been shut for now. The cold winds would have wreaked havoc inside and David might have frozen; or drowned.
Approaching the door, Skiouros reached up and grasped the cord attached to the bell clapper, shaking it back and forth with enough vigour to make the noise heard over the howling winds. For good measure, he then hammered on the door three times - then a pause - then three more times; the knock of a repeat and known customer.
There seemed to be no sign of stirring from within and Skiouros strained to hear above the howling of the dreadful wind, finally turning in a mix of disappointment and irritation, preparing to leave, when the door opened with a quiet click.
A gleaming black pupil glared out at chest height, framed by black curly hair.
"Shalom… lady?" he hazarded. "Would it be possible to speak to master Judah Ben Isaac?"
The eye narrowed for a moment and the door slammed shut, leaving Skiouros standing confused and wind-blown in the street. After half a minute longer, the irritation began to outweigh the confusion in him, and Skiouros reached out once more to rap heavily on the door, just as it swung open again. Arresting his reaching hand and trying not to stagger, Skiouros righted himself and looked up into the eyes of David.
The big man who habitually stood at the door was, in a word, unkempt. His ringlets looked strangled and greasy - unwashed or brushed, and a field of dark stubble grew across the lower half of his face. His usually neat attire was stained and creased and, to cap it all, a long tear marred the right breast of his shirt, leaving ragged strands and dangling thread.
Skiouros realised that he was staring and that doing such was a dangerous thing with men like David.
"I wonder if I…"
"Go away."
Skiouros blinked. "I'm sorry if this is an inconvenient time, and normally I would simply return later, but I'm trying to arrange transport from here and I really need my money."
David's eyes turned baleful and Skiouros winced for a moment. A little more deference might have been politic.
"In!" snapped David, swinging the door open and standing aside. "Not the office. Up the stairs; to the back."
As Skiouros stepped inside and gingerly shuffled along the passage, the large man closed the door behind him and followed, urging him up a flight of half a dozen stairs and into a large room - a hall even. In all his years of visiting the house, Skiouros had only ever attended in the two office rooms, never penetrating into the heart of the building.
Something about the hall struck Skiouros as strangely familiar and it was only as he was being ushered past it into a side room that he realised what it was: the building had once been a chapel or small church. That was why it stood as a singular stone building among all the wood. Beneath his feet, the marble tiles in hexagonal shapes were a sight seen in so many Byzantine churches. The columns had been plastered over white, but were clearly ancient. The walls, simi
larly, were plastered, with only small, high windows, but recessed shapes spoke of three tall windows now blocked up.
He was still frowning over this strange discovery when he was none-too-gently urged into a side room.
Within, a wizened man sat behind a desk covered in ledgers, stacks of tablets and scrolls and paper books along trestles at the other side of the room. The man was a Jew, as his appearance confirmed, and perhaps the right age to be more or less contemporary with Judah Ben Isaac? An uncle perhaps? Or maybe an older brother? His hair was long, as was his beard, both mostly dark grey and speckled with white, but like David he had clearly not bathed in a few days, and his drab, plain clothing showed a similar tear on the breast.
"What's happened?" Skiouros asked quietly, a cold certainty forming in the pit of his stomach that something unpleasant had befallen the Jewish businessman.
The old man looked up from his work, his eyes two hollowed, shadowy pits of grief. He peeled his gaze away to David and asked something in his own language. David's reply was short and sounded less than positive.
"You came for money, boy?"
Skiouros nodded. "I came to collect the change from a currency exchange, after master Ben Isaac's transaction fee, of course."
"Then, young man, you have chosen an inopportune time. My brother is with God now, helped there two nights since by a man with a heart black with murder."
"I… I am sorry to hear that, sir. You have my condolences. Did he…" Skiouros searched hurriedly for a way to confirm his suspicions about the perpetrator without causing offence. "Was it a random attack?"
David appeared at his side, his eyes narrowing.
"Clearly not. And apparently not even because he was one of God's true children. It appears that he was questioned brutally before he was sent to God. If I find out that you caused his end, I will revisit his doom on you, Christian."
"Calm, David" the old man said, and his tone was weary and sad. "Judah had stolen the fruit from many a man's pie in his time. We are in Shiva and it is not a time for accusations and anger."
"It is also not time for business, uncle, but here you sit with father's ledgers." David shied away from the angry glance of the old man and stepped back once more. The brother of Judah Ben Isaac beckoned, and Skiouros stepped forward to the table.
"I wish it could wait, master Ben Isaac, and I am truly sorry to interrupt your grieving, but I am unfortunately bound by my own troubles."
"You are not of us. You do not understand Shiva. Some would be insulted by the presence of an outsider, unless he is here to sit Shiva with us, of course." He looked up past Skiouros. "Go to ama and help her, David."
The big man lumbered away, grumbling under his breath.
"Now" the old man said, leaning back and steepling his fingers, "you have business with my brother. He would wish it settled, if it could be. I am working through his accounts now, so tell me about your business."
Skiouros felt the prospects brighten and nodded. "Master Judah - may God bless his memory - was transacting a particularly complex exchange of Mamluk coins into akce for me. I think via Venetian ducats. The exchange should have been complete by now, but I realise that there may be something of a delay. The problem is that I am bound for Crete as soon as I can find a ship that will sail, and I have no more time."
The old Jew's eyes narrowed.
"Mamluk coins?"
"Yes."
"Then I fear you are set for disappointment, young man. My brother was returning from an exchange in the Venetian enclave when he was set upon. He was left in the street outside with a Mamluk coin on his tongue. I fear your money is gone - perhaps taken by the very thugs that sent Judah to God."
Skiouros closed his eyes for a moment, trying not to panic. Without a small fund, he would find it almost impossible to find passage from this benighted city.
"I am working through his records" the old man went on, gesturing to the ledgers. "I have already been back a week and there is no mention of your transaction, I am afraid. He must have done it as a private commission and kept no record. I cannot see how I can be of further help."
The young visitor pinched the bridge of his nose. The nightmare morning was worsening by the hour.
"Is there any way you can arrange passage from the city in its stead? I know that master Judah had cargoes arriving and leaving the city every day. Perhaps I could find a place with one of those vessels?"
The old man shook his head.
"No ships are leaving. Even the small ferry boats to the Anatolian coast on the far side of the Bosporos have been grounded. Not even a fisherman sails today."
"What of land caravans?" Skiouros asked, trying to keep the edge of desperation from his voice.
"Only to Anatolia - to the Asian shores. The Wali of Hadrianople controls all land routes to the north and west and his taxes are too restrictive for my brother's business. It is simple, young man: nothing comes in or goes out until the ports open."
Skiouros sagged. Every way he turned this morning a door shut in his face. He was trying very hard not to feel as though his brother was trying to keep him 'on task' from beyond the veil. His mind began to wander as the old Jew started to rattle off the details of different routes and why they were closed, when they would be open and whether they would help with a journey to Crete.
It was odd that he'd spent the night talking to the ghost of his Muslim brother in a former Christian church, and now here he was trying to strike a deal with a Jew in another such building. Even the damn Romani witch he seemed fated to keep bumping into had started spouting religious rubbish at him.
He frowned.
"Quo Vadis!" he grumbled. He'd heard the phrase before, quoted by priests.
"What was that, young man?"
Skiouros blinked, clearing his wandering thoughts and focusing on the old man. "Oh, just something an old woman said to me. Must be her Romani language."
"It is in Latin, boy, not the Romani tongue. 'Where do you go', it means."
"She called me Petros, I think. Or Theodoros. I didn't understand her tongue."
The old Jew leaned back again and narrowed his eyes. "Theodoros?"
"I think so."
"Interesting. This was once the church of Saint Theodoros. My brother found it amusing to make his home here and conduct 'usury' in the house of the Christian God."
Skiouros bit his lip. It was beginning to feel as though something was going to great lengths to keep him here. Much as he claimed not to believe in fate, it was becoming abundantly clear that fate believed in him.
No hope of leaving the city until the storm had cleared, with only a matter of hours until the Sultan's life would be torn from him by a Mamluk hand, plunging the city and the whole world into chaos. And Skiouros no longer had more than a few akce to his name; not even a room in the city any more.
"I am at the end, master Ben Isaac. Without that money, the last door just closed on me."
"I do not understand, young man."
"Everything's been taken from me. I have nothing, and something is about to happen that I cannot change or stop; something awful. I wanted nothing more than to be gone, but I cannot even do that. I am stuck here with my future, which is looking increasingly unpleasant."
The old man shrugged.
"In the words of Ben Sira: 'Do not worry about tomorrow, for thou knowest not what the day will bring forth.'"
"Somehow that doesn't comfort me a great deal. Thank you for seeing me, anyway. My apologies for intruding on your grief."
The old man nodded with a sad smile.
"Sometimes, my boy, even when there seems no way out, one is standing right above the trapdoor."
Skiouros nodded, trying not to comment on how double-edged and disheartening this extra snippet was. Instead, he turned and strode towards the door, pausing just within, as the old man scraped back his stool and crossed the room behind him.
"Come. I will show you out. Blessings of God go with you, whatever this day holds."
"Thank you" Skiouros said with little enthusiasm as he was escorted back through the hall and down the stairs and passage to the front door.
As the heavy wooden portal closed behind him with a click, Skiouros stood in the street, shivering in the wind, and felt utterly lost. The first droplets of the next bout of rain spattered on his forehead and he sighed. Back to the church then? To sit with Lykaion's remains - perhaps to bury them while there was still a graveyard to do it in? Perhaps to take his life in his hands and flee through one of the city gates into the wilds full of wolves, bandits and Turkish soldiers and mercenaries?
No. It would not be long before the Sultan came out of the palace for his religious observances and the empire would lose its head, both literally, and figuratively. By then, Skiouros could be outside the great Aya Sofya with the crowds and might even see the assassin take his shot.
If he was stuck here while the world fell into hell, he was at least going to watch it start to burn.
Chapter 10 – Apocalypse
* Pazar (Sunday) morning *
The streets were already crowded as far back as the curve of the hippodrome. Skiouros grunted his sour mood at the gathered Turks as he pushed and jostled his way between complaining, shouting citizens, all gathered for the dual purpose of celebrating Ashura and trying to catch a glimpse of the great Bayezid the Second, sultan and master of Istanbul.
All they would see from back here amid the curving ruins of the seating stands, however, would be the distant ripple of waving arms among those at the front, acknowledging the lord's arrival. Skiouros tried not to think of them as sheep but failed as he elbowed a heavy-set man out of the way, pushing on between a young merchant-type fellow and two children before the big man could grab him and administer a clout round the ear.
Skiouros was, of course, lithe and small and an expert at moving swiftly through such crowds, evading capture or pursuit; today, though, he was not a thief - nor a fugitive - but one of those very sheep come to watch the great sultan arrive and to see the events of the holy day unfold.
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