Yashim walked with his head down, lost in the crowd and oblivious to the great stream of humanity that swirled around him as he descended to the shore of the Golden Horn.
“Fine times, efendim! It’s our work, every inch-and every inch will get you closer! Bring the ladies! All safe, all sound!”
Beside him, men were shouting and laughing.
Yashim heard their words and saw their happy faces, but he made nothing of it. He could not rid himself of the possibility that Hyacinth had taken his own life. He may have slipped on the ice and overbalanced. He was an old man, after all. But he had asked, “Is it true?” Yashim had said that yes, he believed it to be true: the valide would be moving to Besiktas. And Hyacinth might not be going.
The memory turned like the wheels of the cart that Yashim was following at a cautious distance, to avoid the splash as it lurched into a puddle of dirty water freckled with recent snow. The cartwheels bounced, and began to drum as if they were running over the deck of a ship.
The traffic was busier than usual: he’d never seen or heard so many carts and porters scurrying about here on a winter’s evening.
He hunched his shoulders against the wind, and looked up for a caique.
Hyacinth fell, he repeated to himself. Hyacinth fell against the palace balustrade, in the snow.
He blinked and looked around. He saw a balustrade beside him: higher, perhaps, and made of wood.
“Try it, efendim! No charge-Pera to Istanbul!”
Happy men were standing in a knot, urging people on with their arms.
Yashim took a step forward. He glanced down, astonished to see his feet planted on wooden planks. All around him was a seething mass of people, laughing and pointing, dodging the carts that thundered across the planks.
He stopped. An old man was coming toward him, planting his stick carefully on the boards, grinning and nodding.
“See that, efendi! See that! Don’t be afraid. I did it with my stick-seventy years I’ve waited for this day! Never left Stamboul before. Free! It’s free!”
A ragged-looking man with a shock of corkscrew hair shot through the crowd. He was barefoot, and intent, and he carried a small bag in his fist.
The crowd parted automatically to let him through, and through the gap Yashim recognized two familiar faces.
They swept him up, arm in arm.
“I was just telling our young friend, Yashim, that the bridge is a splendid piece of theater. Istanbul meets Pera-the old empire and the new Europe! Preen should mount a tableau.”
Yashim said nothing. Only when they had stepped onto land, and were at the bottom of the steps that led to the Galata Tower, did he stop and turn, looking back at the bridge. He shook his head. “Our navy,” he said at last. “Do you know what it amounts to? Almost nothing. A few ships of the line, ill-trained crews, foreign officers. Our navy is an illusion-a costly one, for us. The grand vizier thinks that it can stop the Russians. It can’t.”
“Not when it’s in Alexandria, certainly,” Palewski said drily.
“No-never. It’s not our style-we’re afraid of the sea. Look at Husrev Pasha. He’s an old Bosniac-what does he know of the sea? We’ve had two great engagements in the last few hundred years, and we lost them both. Lepanto, 1580. Wiped out. Navarino, 1827. Total collapse of the fleet.”
“‘God gave the land to the Turks, and to the Christians he gave the sea.’ I know the saying.”
They began to climb the Pera steps. “It’s the sea that counts, these days,” Yashim said. “We built our empire by land-because our cavalry was faster than the rest, and because we knew how to govern. All that has changed. It’s ships that matter, in trade and war. With ships you can conquer distant lands, like the British in India. On land, nothing much has changed. But you can bombard a city from the sea-guns, men, drawn anywhere in the world at an instant.”
“Istanbul has never been so vulnerable, that’s true.”
“That, too. When Mehmet the Conqueror took the city from the Greeks, he had one huge cannon dragged over the mountains to the city walls. And he attacked by land.” He swept an arm across the panorama. “Today, battleships could reduce Istanbul to rubble in a few days.”
“I had no idea you were such a strategist, Yashim.”
“I’m not. I’ve been thinking, though. For fifty years or more, the empire has been crumbling around the edges. Losing possessions to Russia on the Black Sea. Losing ground to Egypt in the south. It’s been like watching a bear attacked by dogs. In the end, the dogs will always win.”
“Decline, decline.” Palewski shrugged. “All empires, in the end, are doomed to fall.”
“Naturally-unless they receive unexpected aid.”
“Quite. But the Ottomans, as I’ve mentioned, don’t have powerful friends.”
“No-until now, we’ve simply managed our own decline, alone.”
They passed below the Galata Tower.
Palewski’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, until now?”
“It was what you said about the bridge that made me see it. Europe comes to Istanbul, is that what you said? For fifty years we’ve been clamped in a pincer between Russia and the Egyptians-and when the Greeks sought independence, the British and the French made sure they got it, too. No, we don’t have friends. We don’t even have an alliance of interests.”
“Pretty tight,” Palewski said. “And gloomy.”
“Until Fevzi Pasha sailed into Alexandria and gave up the fleet.”
Palewski frowned. “Gloomier still, I’d have thought.”
Yashim shook his head. “On the contrary. I think Fevzi Pasha’s defection may save the empire.”
Palewski gave a dry laugh. Yashim turned.
“Britain and France, you said, don’t care who governs Istanbul-as long as it isn’t the Russians. But the British are very touchy about anything that crops up along their line to India. Since Napoleon’s day the French feel they have a sort of proprietary interest in Egypt and the Middle East. Protecting the Catholics, for example. Both want to preserve the balance of power in Europe.”
“What are you suggesting, Yashim?”
“Fevzi Ahmet may have inadvertently done what no one has managed to achieve for twenty years-least of all Husrev Pasha. He fights yesterday’s battles, Palewski. Two fronts-the Russians and the Egyptians. Until now, we haven’t had allies. Don’t you see?”
“That by defecting to the Egyptians-?”
“Fevzi Ahmet has forced the issue. Either the Powers let it go, in which case the Russians organize a protectorate in Istanbul, and the khedive rattles his saber over the Middle East-”
“Or the British have to intervene. Yes, I’m beginning to see what you mean. The empire needed outside help-and now it can’t refuse.”
“It was the bridge that made me see it. You said it yourself: the bridge is theater. And so is diplomacy. Fevzi Pasha built a bridge that would bring European Pera into Istanbul. The next thing, ambassador, is a diplomatic approach to the French.”
Palewski startled. “When you say ‘ambassador’-?”
“It can’t be Husrev Pasha. It isn’t his job to spell out the weakness of the Ottoman state. I can’t do it. The only Englishman I know is a thirdgrade secretary to the ambassador.”
“Ah, yes. Mr. Compston. I can’t quite see him shaping European policy for years to come.”
“But you could. You’re neutral and you have the rank. The French ambassador is a friend, isn’t he? Just have a word in his ear, and let him do the rest.”
Palewski glanced around. They were passing the mouth of the lane that led down to the British embassy. “Speaking of Compston, he dropped in earlier. Rambled on about how you saved his watch or something. Seems to feel he’s under some sort of obligation to you.”
Yashim waved his hand impatiently.
“Well, he was most anxious to talk to you, Yashim. Felt he owed you something, can’t remember what it was about.” Palewski screwed up his eyes. “A tip about some papers, I think. He said to get in touch-you’d know why.”
Yashim pulled a face. “I’ve no idea.”
“No matter. He’s at the embassy, apparently-and we’re just passing. Perhaps…”
Yashim stopped. “All right. I’ll drop in, now.”