by Jenny White
43
THE GUARD AT the Imperial Museum put down his rifle and unlocked the front door. He looked up at the Arabic inscription over the lintel. He couldn’t read it, but assumed it was a verse from the Quran, so he said a silent prayer before stepping across the threshold. Inside, the other guard was asleep in his chair. He nudged him and went into the kitchen to prepare the morning’s tea. It took him several minutes to light the brazier, set the water to boil in the bottom of the double-boiler teapot, and pour a cup of black tea leaves into the top. He stared out of the window, looking at nothing particular, but letting the golds and russets of autumn fill his eyes. When the water was hot, he poured enough over the tea leaves to cover them, put the teapot back on the boiler, and set it on the coals to brew for another twenty minutes. He glanced at the lay of the light to judge the time, then went back into the main room. He wanted to ask the other guard’s advice about finding an apprenticeship for his son. It was time he learned a trade.
The other man was still asleep, head on his chest, arms loose in his lap. When the guard pushed his shoulder, he slumped further, then slid from the chair onto the floor.
KAMIL HELD HIS head in his hands. Standing before him was Hamdi Bey, his usually impeccable cravat askew and his vest buttons wrongly done up.
“It’s gone,” Hamdi Bey repeated.
Kamil stood and walked around his desk, his headache flaring with each step. He offered Hamdi Bey a seat and some refreshment, but the old man wagged his gray beard and refused to be coddled.
“What happened?” Kamil asked, bracing himself against a table and wishing Hamdi Bey would sit so that he could.
“Someone drugged the guard.”
“With food?”
“I don’t know,” Hamdi Bey cried out in bewilderment. “There was no food anywhere. Just dregs of tea. We tested them and they’re just tea. The man has always been completely reliable.”
“How is he?” Kamil asked.
“He’s delirious. He’s babbling about having been visited by an angel who showed him the gardens of paradise.” Hamdi Bey peeled off his thin leather gloves. “I think the strain of watching the Proof of God must have been too much for him.”
Kamil was surprised. “Does he know what it is?”
“We never told the guards what it was, but in the absence of real information, rumors are passed around.”
“What do you mean?”
“The other guard told me that they thought they were guarding a prophecy revealed to the Prophet Muhammad by an angel.”
“But that’s the Quran.”
“I know. They think this is a newly revealed sura.” He put on his pince-nez as if that would clarify matters, then took them off again and massaged between his eyes.
“They’re simple men,” he decided finally. He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. “Now I have to go tell Ismail Hodja.”
Kamil stood at the window watching Hamdi Bey get into his carriage. When the horses moved off into the traffic, Kamil slammed his fist into the sill.
44
Two Weeks Later
THE FIRST SNOW of the season drifted over Sunken Village. Kamil, Hamdi Bey, and Ismail Hodja sat on stools in the Melisite prayer house in an unobtrusive spot where they could see past the worshipers and follow the ceremony unfolding at the front. Kamil could see Amida’s disappointment as he watched the proceedings from his wheelchair, Courtidis hovering nearby. Omar had decided, as he put it bluntly, to live and let die, and not arrest Amida on any charges.
The hall was packed with villagers of all ages, dressed in their best. Earlier, to a wild crescendo of drumming and a steady undercurrent of prayer, an ox, a ewe, and a she-goat had been sacrificed and their blood poured into the pillars by the door. A blood-spattered peacock feather lay in the snow before the sacrificial stone.
After the ceremony, Courtidis had told them, there would be a feast in the hall and the community would dance and sing. Kamil noticed that he looked happy and relaxed and that his clothes were clean and neatly pressed. He wore a fashionable suit and a new fez. He slipped Kamil a small tin box, which he tucked into his pocket.
Suddenly, all conversation ceased. Kamil saw Saba enter the room. She was dressed in a magnificent linen cloak embroidered with gold. Two fillets of gold-embroidered linen fell on either side of her face. She looked like an empress. Kamil could feel the powerful impact her presence had on the people in the hall.
The crowd opened a path before her. In her hand, she held the scepter, now innocent of Malik’s blood. Near the front of the hall waited a stout old woman in a red robe. Her face was split from nose to ear by a wound, not entirely healed. Two apprentices dressed in red stood on either side of her.
When Saba reached the front of the hall, she turned, raised her arms, and led the congregation in prayer.
Ismail Hodja whispered to Kamil, “Fascinating. They’re praying in Ottoman, but they use terms like Adonai. That’s from the Tawrat. It means lord. I’ve only heard Jews use it. And watch their hands. The motions are like a tour of all the religions.”
Of them all, Ismail Hodja had been the most philosophical about the disappearance of the Proof of God.
“In an odd way, the disappearance reaffirms my faith,” he had explained to Kamil. “It’s as if the Proof is traveling in the world incognito. It won’t settle and reveal itself until humanity is ready to hear its message. We’ve been enormously blessed that it allowed us a glimpse before returning to occultation.”
Ismail Hodja’s renewed faith was of little comfort to Kamil. Stealing the Proof was cheating humanity of peace, he thought, regardless of whether or not you believed in its divine origin. Malik would have understood. As he might have pointed out, this was a city that ate the soul of the past.
The woman in red came forward and placed Balkis’s ring, engraved with a crescent and disk, on Saba’s right forefinger, then bowed her head and retreated. Saba turned away from the congregation and faced an iron gate decorated with an angel that led, Courtidis had explained, to the Holy of Holies.
“Behold Saba,” the woman intoned loudly. “Behold the Proof of God, Container of the Uncontainable. Behold the Key to all religions.”
“Adonai, help us,” the congregation responded. “Virgin of Chora, Container of the Uncontainable, keep us.”
Saba let her cape slip from her shoulders. A collective sigh of astonishment rose from the congregation. Kamil felt the hair on the back of his neck rise.
Saba wore a backless white robe. From her waist to her amber shoulders was a pair of powerful tattooed wings. They were the wings of a bird of prey, a falcon or a hawk.
“Behold the Proof of God,” Saba announced in a voice that carried to the back of the hall.
She took a key from a gold chain around her waist, unlocked the angel gate, and stepped inside.
Acknowledgments
I AM DEEPLY GRATEFUL to my editor, Amy Cherry; my agent, Al Zuckerman; and all the talented, supportive folks at W. W. Norton, especially Elisabeth Kerr, Ingsu Liu, Erin Sinesky-Lovett, and Vanessa Schneider. I have the best team in the world. Robert Ousterhout was extraordinarily generous in sharing with me his deep knowledge of Byzantium and the Kariye in particular. Roger Owen came up with intriguing historical details and Corky White bravely accompanied me belowground. They and Lydia Fitzpatrick, Stephen Kimmel, Star Lawrence, and Carl Leiden read the manuscript at various stages and, where I strayed, showed me the straight path. I also wish to thank Rosalyn Adam, Walter Denny, and Jordan Dimitrakov for sharing their expertise in names, carpets, and modes of death. Asli Baykal helped me track down everything from curses to weasels and Deniz Hughes offered up the contents of her house. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Linda Barlow, my mentor and role model, and to Michael Freeman, my secret weapon, who is always there and who always knows what to do.
Table of Contents
ALSO BY JENNY WHITE
Title Page
Copyright
Dedicat
ion
Epigraph
Contents
Chapter 1 Constantinople, May 28, 1453
Chapter 2 Istanbul, 2 Teshrinievvel, 1303 Rumi (October 14, 1887)
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40 A Month Later
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44 Two Weeks Later
Acknowledgments
