by Sarah Rayne
‘That’s a reasonable enough condition,’ said Gil.
‘And if, after an hour’s time, you have no success I shall return here, even if I do so on my own.’
‘That’s also reasonable,’ said Crispian.
As they got ready for the journey, Gil said quietly, ‘I thought that would get him.’
‘What?’
‘Our indifference. The implication that we could do it without him.’
‘Thank you,’ said Crispian gratefully.
‘Save your thanks until we know whether we can get Jamie out of this. I should think we can trust Raif, can’t we? To translate everything honestly?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘And Jamie?’ said Gil. ‘I suppose there couldn’t be any truth in the charge of spying? Not even the smallest speck?’
‘Not even the smallest speck,’ said Crispian angrily. ‘It’s absurd. Are you ready? We’d better set off.’
But before they could do so, Raif came to them.
‘Is something wrong?’ said Crispian, seeing the expression on the doctor’s face.
‘Later you might think of it as something that is right. I’m sorry, Mr Cadence, but the night staff have just told me that during the night Sir Julius sank into a deep coma. So far it hasn’t been possible to revive him. They have tried and I have just been with him and I have tried as well.’
‘Oh God,’ said Crispian, and for a moment he had to turn away from both the doctor and Gil, because the emotions struggling inside him were almost too much to bear. He put out a hand to the wall, because he was not sure if his legs would support him. Anger and sorrow and bitterness coursed helplessly through him, but after a moment he was able to straighten up and turn back to the others.
‘Is he dying?’
‘I think so.’ Before Crispian could ask the question, Raif said, ‘I think he has a few hours of life left. Not longer than that.’
‘Oh God,’ said Crispian again, and looked at Gil. ‘What do I do?’
‘If you stay here I’ll try to get Jamie freed—’ said Gil, but Raif interrupted him.
‘You must both go,’ he said. ‘These people will take more notice of family. Sir Julius can’t be helped, not by any of us. He’s already far beyond us. Also, I don’t think we will be away very long. Your discussion with the people who are holding him won’t be a lengthy matter.’
Gil said, ‘They’ll either agree to release him right away or they’ll refuse?’
‘Yes. And if they refuse, you won’t be able to change their minds. I think we will be back here in two hours – three at the most.’ In a friendlier voice than he had used since breaking the news about Jamie, he said, ‘Sir Julius is not likely to die until late tonight at the soonest. You will be in good time to be with him at the end.’
It did not take very long to reach the place where Jamie was being held. The Pasha’s men clearly knew the way, and Crispian’s party were taken to one of the old parts of the city.
‘D’you sense we’re going nearer to the fighting?’ murmured Gil to Crispian.
‘Yes, but I think it’s probably because we’re going to the outskirts of the city.’
Buildings huddled together and there were dark, sinister-looking alleyways with archways overhead. Neither Crispian nor Gil had been to this part of Edirne before, and Crispian noticed that the Byzantine influence was stronger than elsewhere. Despite the fighting and the threat of food shortages, the narrow shops still had displays of beautiful, jewel-coloured silks and exotic pottery, and stalls and booths were selling food.
‘Probably not for much longer, though,’ remarked Gil.
Between the buildings they glimpsed the onion domes and minarets of the mosques and prayer halls, and all round them was the strange, unfathomable language. On the air came the distinctive thin wailing that Crispian recognized as either people being called to prayer or people already engaged in prayer. The scents of cooking and exotic spices and oils lay heavily on the air and people looked at them curiously as they went past doorways and shops.
And somewhere in this bewildering maze of alleys and buildings, Jamie was being held by people who believed he had given information to Edirne’s enemies. People who, according to Raif, followed the old ways of the Turks and had a very particular punishment for spies. But what?
As they were led through the streets Crispian tried to imagine what Jamie must be feeling but he was unable to do so.
Jamie Cadence’s Journal, Edirne, 1912
When I think of how I worked out the details finally to destroy Crispian in Edirne, and how I failed, I’m consumed with such fury it almost overwhelms me.
It’s quite difficult to set out a proper account, and earlier, I was aware of nervousness because this is the morning I’ve allotted to describing what happened in Edirne. The day I’ll have to relive the nightmare in these pages. So here it is. The truth.
Chapter 27
Jamie Cadence’s Journal
I started to explore Edirne soon after our arrival – when I had got over being sick from that vile railway journey, that is, and after we had settled into our quarters in the fort. I’ll admit Crispian did well in arranging that.
It took a great deal of courage to go outside the fort on my own. I don’t think many people would venture into a maze of narrow streets in a strange land, knowing nothing of the language, and with the country on the brink of war with half a dozen of its neighbours. But I did. Neither Crispian nor Gil thought it very unusual: they both considered me something of a loner.
As I walked through the streets, I drew myself little maps so as not to get lost, and quite soon I sought out the Jewish community, using their music as the basis for approaching them. No, that’s not an accurate statement. I didn’t ‘use’ the music; I was genuinely interested. They have a wonderful legacy of music in that city. A choral society of Maftirim was founded there in the seventh century and a great many gifted cantors have come from the area.
Jewish people have endured much abuse and ill treatment over the centuries, but I’ve always liked them. They’re courteous and warm and interesting. And among that particular Jewish community were a number of very scholarly men – elders – who could understand and speak English. That was what I wanted. I was accepted by them quite early on – the eccentric Englishman from the famous banking house, caught in the country through the fortunes of war.
From there it was easy to identify others who were not so scholarly or courteous. Extremists, they were called, those fiery-eyed, dark-visaged men and youths, and the few women who were with them. I never sorted out their nationalities, but I think they were mostly Turks and a few Greeks. They were all working in their own ways to defeat the Bulgarians and the Montenegrins, and all the other people who wanted to take over Edirne and everything that had once been part of the ancient Ottoman Empire.
The remarkable thing is that they trusted me. They were pleased – perhaps also flattered – that this Englishman who had so much money (ha!) sought them out and wanted to understand about their war and their plans. Ah, the English understood about empires and the losing of them, they said. I spent long afternoons with them, seated in their small, hot houses. Usually one of the English-speaking Jews would be there, but not always, and one or two of the younger men had a phrase or two of English. I was able to listen with apparent absorption to everything. Even with the language barrier, it was plain that these were people who would fight with every means at their disposal, and who would ignore the ordinary rules of warfare. Do ordinary rules operate in warfare, though? I wouldn’t know. I’ve never fought a war, except my own private wars with the darknesses, which I usually lost anyway.
Sometimes I went to their houses at night as well, avoiding the evening meal in the fortress with Crispian and Gil and the others, pleading a headache from the heat of the day. It was easy to say I was retiring to my room and then to slip out of the fort – I knew all the ways in and out by that time – and skulk through the dark streets
. On several of those nights my own darkness walked with me. Once, it was so strong I believed I saw its shadow, loping alongside me on the ancient stones. Henry Jekyll seizing the hapless Hyde’s mind yet again, twisting and deforming and dredging up the shameful bloodlust, or Thomas Hardy’s figure and visage of Madness seeking a home.
I killed again that night. I don’t suppose anyone who’s read this far will be surprised. It wasn’t a particularly imaginative killing. I simply stood in the shadows of a tall building, waiting for a likely victim, and in the end a young boy came along. I usually prefer a woman when I’m killing but there was little chance of a lone female in that part of the world. The boy put up quite a fight, but I overcame him, of course. What did Raif and that drunken sot on the ship, Dr Brank, say? That genuinely mad people have the strength of three men? They were talking about Julius but they might as well have been talking about me. I certainly had the strength of three men, that night. And, as in Messina, the fight and the eventual killing were deeply arousing. I pondered that afterwards, because although killing a woman always brought me to helpless arousal, I hadn’t expected it to be the same with a man. But since I’m shortly to die (sixty hours left now), I may as well admit I was aroused by the boy’s struggles.
It was as I returned to the fort, the hunger slaked, the darkness dissolving, I suddenly saw the perfect way to get rid of Crispian. Tonight, if I had left something of Crispian’s on the boy’s body, he could have been traced and charged with the murder. It wouldn’t have mattered if anyone had seen me either, because Crispian and I are superficially alike. And it would have been easy to have stolen something from his room – a cufflink, perhaps. He was always vain as a cat about the way he looked and dressed. Even in the fortress with the Bulgarian armies bombing the town and people starting to worry about food supplies, he donned a dinner jacket each night, with studs in the cuffs. People make jokes about the British dressing for dinner in the jungle to preserve standards, but it’s exactly what Crispian did in Edirne. Gil Martlet did too, but that was because he wanted to go to bed with Crispian. Each to his own brand of gratification. As for Crispian’s feelings about Gil, I never had a clue, because he gave nothing away. Personally, I always thought him a cold fish when it came to emotions.
The idea of committing a crime in Crispian’s name – of arranging for him to be charged with some serious transgression – took firm root in my mind. So, when I got to know the Jewish musicians and the Turkish extremists, I didn’t tell them my real name. I said I was Crispian Cadence. And from there, I took pains to let it be known that I and my companions desperately wanted to get out of Edirne, that we would do practically anything to return to England. We would pay handsomely, I said hopefully. When that brought no response, I amended it to say we would do anything at all that would lead to our freedom. Living in the fort, alongside the soldiers and the Pasha’s aides, was very tedious; there was no privacy to speak of. Everyone knew everyone else’s business.
At first I thought there were no Bulgarian spies inside Edirne or, if there were, they had not been told what I said or were not prepared to take any risks with an unknown Englishman. There was also the chance that the real meaning of what I had said had been lost in translation.
But shortly after the Bulgar armies surrounded Edirne, one of the extremists I had met approached me with a proposition. He was quite a young man, formerly a student, I believe, although I have no idea what his nationality was. Speaking in fragmented English he managed to explain he had friends outside Edirne who would pay very well indeed for information about the workings of the fortress and the movements of the Pasha’s men. It might not be payment in actual money, I was to understand, but in the creating of a safe passage out of the town and onto a cargo ship for myself and the other Englishmen. That was what I wanted, yes?
‘Yes,’ I said very emphatically.
For the next ten days, working with infinite care and patience, I began to feed this man details of life inside the fort. The times of guard duty on the main entrance, the hours when there were only a couple of men guarding and when the guard changed over. He said something about those being vulnerable times. Later I managed to get into the Pasha’s room when no one was around, and stole a file of letters, which I passed on. I have no idea what the letters said – they might simply have been lists of provisions or dull records – but the very fact that I was prepared to court such danger added to my credibility as a spy.
Still pretending to be Crispian, I then deliberately became careless. I handed over papers in public places, I behaved with furtive nervousness, and I let damning remarks drop among my Jewish acquaintances, then looked guiltily around as if to see who had heard or understood. After a time I got quite annoyed that no one did anything, because there I was, spying away for all I was worth, passing on information about the workings of the fortress, and nobody did a damn thing to stop me.
What I wasn’t prepared for – what I don’t think anyone could have been prepared for – was that my plan would go so disastrously wrong; that I would be the one caught and charged as a spy. I had assumed that at some stage Crispian would be hauled off to face some kind of inquiry. Instead, they pounced on me while I was in the town, and they seemed to have been watching for me without my realizing it. Also – this was a bitter blow – they addressed me by my real name. When and how they discovered I wasn’t Crispian I have no idea, and it no longer seems to matter.
There were four of them and there was no possibility of resisting them. Even if I could have got away, where would I have gone? A bewildered, slightly angry air of innocence was clearly my best attitude, except that I didn’t even get chance for that. They half dragged me to a dim cellar with the smell of stale sweat emanating from the walls. Then they locked the door and went away.
I tried the door at once, of course, rattling it and shouting furiously to be let out, but the room was too far below the ground for anyone to hear me, and the door was massively thick oak, with a lock that resisted all my attempts to smash it.
I sat down in a corner of the room and wondered what they would do to me.
Edirne, 1912
The Pasha’s guards took Crispian, Gil and the reluctant Raif to a tall old building, marching them through a low archway into a large square, enclosed on all sides by rearing stone walls. At one end were a group of about a dozen men, all seated at a long table. There was an air of hasty tribunal about the situation.
‘Dear God,’ said Gil softly, ‘it’s like a court.’
‘What does he say?’ said Crispian, as a youngish man, clearly the leader, stood up and began to address incomprehensible words directly to them.
‘That they have no quarrel with us, but that the one who is of your family has sinned against the ancient law of treachery and betrayal.’ Raif sent a glance of apology to Crispian. ‘I know it sounds biblical, but I told you these people keep to the old ways.’ He listened for a moment, then said, ‘We’re being told that if we try to interfere we will be asked to leave. They’re being quite polite about it.’
‘Oh, good,’ said Gil sarcastically.
‘Are they going to try Jamie?’
‘I think so. They will regard it as a solemn ceremony.’
‘But is this kind of proceeding permitted?’ demanded Crispian. ‘I mean – is it lawful? Can’t we call in some kind of authority?’
‘Mr Cadence, we’re not in England where you can call for policemen or lawyers. Edirne is being besieged by half a dozen countries, all of them our enemies who want to destroy it. These people believe your cousin sold secrets to those enemies. I doubt you would find a single person in this city who would lift a finger to help him.’
‘But he’s innocent,’ said Crispian, helplessly.
‘Is he? Can you be sure of that?’ Raif turned away and Crispian looked at Gil, who shrugged as if to say, Don’t look at me, I don’t know if he’s innocent or not.
The men at the table had been murmuring to one another, but quite suddenly
they sat up straighter and turned their heads to a door in a corner of the square. It was flung open and Jamie was brought out. Crispian had been having wild ideas of somehow rushing the men around the table and snatching Jamie away, but he saw at once it would be impossible. Jamie was heavily guarded, and his ankles and wrists were manacled.
‘He’s very frightened,’ he said softly to Gil.
‘So would I be in his shoes. He’s managing not to show it, though. They’ll respect that.’
But in the rapid interchange of words that followed, it did not seem to Crispian as if Jamie was being accorded much respect at all. Raif translated as much as possible, but at times the dialogue was so fast it was difficult for him to keep up.
‘Also,’ he said, ‘the leader speaks with a strong . . .’ He paused, clearly searching for the word.
‘Accent? Patois?’
‘Yes. I cannot follow it all.’
But what they could all follow was that the men around the table were now nodding solemnly and raising their right hands. The leader made a show of counting the hands, then walked to the centre of the square, standing directly in front of Jamie. One of the older men joined him.
‘He is to act as interpreter for your cousin,’ said Raif. ‘See, they are beckoning us to go a little nearer so we can hear what’s being said. But I’m very much afraid they’ve agreed he’s guilty and they’re going to pass sentence.’
A silence fell on the square. Then came the words, then the voice of the translator.
‘James Cadence, we find you guilty of spying. Of selling or giving away information about our country in a time of war – information that could lead to its enemies possessing the country. Therefore you will suffer the punishment our fathers meted out to those found guilty of betraying our country and our people to enemies.’ A pause. ‘The ancient rule sets down that whichever part of the body committed the sin shall be cut out.’ Then, as cold horror washed over Crispian, the man said, ‘Since you are guilty of speaking secrets that would aid our enemies, tonight at sunset your tongue will be cut from your mouth so you can never speak again.’
