Tasha Alexander - Tears of Pearl

“I don’t believe in any of this. You can’t possibly know—”

“I know what the future holds at this moment. The choices you make from now on may change your course, but you must walk with trepidation and make no mistakes if you’re to have any chance at escaping your current fate.”

I stood up, stormed across the room, but could not quite bring myself to leave. I turned back towards her. “Why would you tell me something like this?”

“I like you, Emily. You deserve the warning.”

Rather than wait for my husband on the steps of the Archaeological Museum, as we’d planned, I paced the perimeter of the first courtyard at Topkapı, looking for him on the path that led to the museum. Bezime’s words had sickened me. My temples throbbed, my stomach would not stop twisting around itself, and my mind was full of fear. I saw Colin as he walked through the gate, arms crossed, tension in every calculated step he took. He called out when he caught sight of me and waved, but as I reached out for his hand when he stood before me, his eyes flashed a combination of concern and anger.

“Did you omit anything when you told me what happened at Yıldız yesterday?”

“No, of course not,” I said. “You’re awfully accusatory.”

“I can’t say I much liked receiving a visit from the British consul telling me that you and I have been banned from there.”

“From Yıldız?”

“Yes.”

“Heavens,” I said, rolling my eyes and starting for the museum’s steps. The neoclassical building had opened not more than a year earlier, and although it was not so large as the British Museum, I’d looked forward to viewing the collection from the moment I’d read about it on the train. “If I’ve given that much insult, I’d certainly like to have known at the time I was doing it. I might have rather enjoyed it.”

“This isn’t amusing, Emily. Did you promise to help someone escape from the harem?”

“I—how—” I closed my eyes, sighed hard. “I didn’t say I would help her escape.”

“But you spoke to the sultan about it?”

“I asked him in general terms if he would consider arranging a marriage for her.”

“And this is why you were removed with such force? Why you had bruises on your arms?”

“Yes,” I said.

“And you con ve niently neglected telling me that particular detail,” he said. “How could you think broaching such a topic to the sultan would be appropriate?”

“She’s living like a slave.”

“And a loveless marriage would be an improvement?”

“I don’t know. She’s converted to Christianity, Colin, and is living in a state of mortal sin. She’s embraced the work of St. Thomas Aquinas.”

“Aquinas? The same who said, ‘Drink to the point of hilarity’?”

“It’s not a joke. She’s very serious about her faith and is tortured at not being able to walk away from sin.”

“I cannot believe this.” He turned away from me, walked towards the museum entrance, put his hand on the door, then turned back. “This is not some diversion. We’ve been granted access—unprecedented access, I might add—to the sultan and his harem because both the British and Ottoman governments want to avoid an embarrassing diplomatic situation. You don’t have the right to take advantage of that to forward your own interests.”

“How can you speak to me like this?” I asked. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“You are acting as an authorized representative of the British Crown and are to operate in a very specific and limited manner.”

“I had no idea the Crown was so little interested in—”

“In what, Emily? In the romantic concerns of persons not British?”

“It’s not romantic, it’s theological!” My mouth hung open, and I could not breathe. “I never thought you of all people would recriminate me for—”

“For stepping completely out of bounds? I consider you my equal, and I will always tell you when you’ve gone too far.”

“Gone too far?” I could not keep my voice from trembling.

“Come inside,” he said.

He bought our tickets and ushered me into the museum. We did not speak again until we’d reached the Alexander Sarcophagus, the stunning and enormous object that had inspired the building’s architecture. It had not belonged to the great king, but its white stone showcased his strengths. On one side, he sat, wearing a lion’s head for a helmet, astride his horse, Bucephalas, fighting the Persian army, his enemy near defeat. The opposite panel showed him hunting lions. I leaned close, irritated at finding myself so distracted when before such a significant piece, but wholly unable to concentrate.

“Don’t be outraged,” Colin said. “I would have said the same thing to a man.”

“And I hope that he would... would...” I was losing my temper, and fast, despite the fact that I knew he was not being wholly unreasonable. I should have discussed Roxelana’s situation with him before I broached the topic with the sultan. I wondered if she had taken it upon herself to speak to Abdül Hamit. I looked at my perfectly handsome husband and felt nothing but anger. My tenuous grip on control was slipping fast; it was taking all my focus to keep from stomping my foot in petulant indignation and storming across the gallery. This, coupled with unwanted tears filling my eyes, was too much to be borne. It was as if I were no longer myself.

“You hope he would call me out.” He smiled. “Pistols at dawn? Or do you prefer swords?”

“I’d never be so dramatic,” I said, pretending to be fascinated with the detail on the face of a lion, Alexander’s prey.

“I imagine not.” He pressed his lips together, pushing them to one side, what he always did when he was trying not to laugh. Much though I hated to admit it at the moment, it was an irresistible maneuver.

“If I must, though, I’d pick swords,” I said. “More elegant.”

“Is that so? Rather messy in the end, don’t you think?” He walked back to me.

“You’ve been very firm about denying me my Derringer until I learn to shoot, so I assumed it would not be a wise move at this juncture to choose pistols.”

Now he did laugh. “I apologize if my frank manner of speech was too much. I should have couched my criticism in softer terms.”

This was not at all what I wanted. “No, no, you shouldn’t have. I don’t want to be coddled. I’m sorry if my actions have made things more difficult.”

He touched my face, his rough hand cool on my cheek. “I shan’t coddle you. Not now, at any rate. But there may come a day—a happy day—on which you require an extended period of coddling. Beyond that, however, I shall be as hard on you as I am on anyone.”

I did not like this talk of extended coddling, particularly as I had a strong suspicion he was referring to the probable cause of my would-be seasickness. Every dreaded emotion swirled through me, but I forced them away. “I want that treatment—that respect from you always. Regardless of whatever happy day we may reach.”

“Some circumstances—”

“Please.” I had to interrupt. “Not now. Let’s discuss the matter at hand.”

“Of course.” He paused, just for an instant, flashing my favorite smile. “We’re in a tricky situation. Tell me about your afternoon.”

“There’s so much, I hardly know where to start.” I took Benjamin’s cross out of my reticule and recounted Mr. Sutcliffe’s story.

Colin frowned. “It shall be easy enough to confirm whether it does belong to him. We are, however, going to need to get back into the harem. Do you think you can work your charms on the sultan and regain your access?”

“I shall have to find a way. We got along famously at first. I may have overstepped my bounds speaking to him about Roxelana, but that doesn’t seem enough—particularly as it’s not connected to the murder—to cause our expulsion. Something else had to be a contributing factor, and I’m convinced it has to do with Ceyden’s collection of ill-gotten jewels.”

“I’ve no doubt you can ferret out the truth. I’ll see where this leads us.” He took the chain from me and stopped in front of a small, glass-fronted case.

“Is this all that remains of Troy?” I frowned at the uninspiring grouping of broken pottery. “There must be more—all that gold. I’ve read about it.”

“Schliemann took it all to Berlin.” Heinrich Schliemann, the German archaeologist who’d found and excavated the site, had published pictures of his wife draped in the gold he called the Treasure of Priam. “Smuggled it.”

“We must go to the site of the excavation before we leave Turkey,” I said. “I will not sleep well again until I’ve seen the ground upon which Hector’s blood spilled.”

He pressed my hand to his lips. “You’re so dramatic.”

I smiled, but my thoughts had already returned to our purpose. “Do you think there’s a chance Benjamin killed his sister?”

“There’s always a chance, Emily.”

“I don’t even want to imagine what that would do to Sir Richard.”

“Or to Benjamin,” he said. “If he did it, did he know who she was?”

“Could he have killed her to save her from the shame of being in the harem?”

Colin laughed. “You and your fiction. When we’re old and gray and full of sleep, I’d like nothing more than to see you turn your talents to writing the worst sort of sensational novels.”

“ ‘Old and gray and full of sleep.’ What a lovely phrase. Poem?”

“Yeats. It’s to be in his next collection. He showed it to me last time I was in Dublin.”

“Well, I’ve no intention of ever being full of sleep. Old and gray, however, is unavoidable.”

Colin had gone in search of Sir Richard, leaving me to wait for his return at a tiny tea shop, where over perfectly crispy baklava I repeated again and again in my mind what Bezime had told me. Her words had sliced through me, ripping bright holes in the shaded hollows of my soul from which I’d been hiding since my marriage. The prospect of having a child terrified me. I’d never been able to shake from my memory the sound of screams echoing through the halls of my parents’ estate when I was eleven years old. The noise had wakened me, and I’d slipped out of the nursery, my bare feet cold on the marble floor as I sought the source of the disturbance, more than a little confident I had at last found a ghost, something my cousin James had tried and failed to do every time his family visited us. But as the cries grew louder, I recognized the voice. It was James’s mother, my aunt Clarabelle. We’d been told there would be a new baby in time for Christmas; instead there was a funeral.