Tasha Alexander - Tears of Pearl

Death was something to which we were all accustomed. My older brothers, twins, had both fallen to the influenza when they were thirteen years old, and James had lost a sister to rheumatic fever. Until that December, however, I’d viewed death as something that, while sad, was peaceful. Those ragged cries changed my opinion forever. My mother, tears streaming from eyes I’d never before seen cry, found me in the hallway, shivering on the floor. She marched me back to my room, told me not to be confused by what I’d heard, that this was commonplace, that it couldn’t always be avoided, that childbirth was a dangerous thing.

I don’t know that I’ve better remembered any of her words. And in the years that followed, I saw their truth borne out, most recently when an acquaintance from my school years died fewer than two years after her marriage, leaving behind a grieving husband and a sickly infant.

I disliked weakness, and my fear of so natural a process could be described as nothing else. This revelation disturbed me. The procreation of children, after all, was intended to be a primary purpose of marriage, and for every woman who died in the process, hundreds succeeded. Could it be a thousand? Or more? I wondered if knowing the true odds would offer me consolation. I placed my palm flat on my abdomen and wondered if Bezime’s words had contained any bits of truth. When we returned to England at the end of the following month, I would see my physician. If he confirmed what I suspected, I would share the news with Colin and let him coddle me, if only for the period of my confinement.

An intense sensation of heat rushed through me, followed by a wave of dizziness and a wash of fear, each of which dissipated as the call to prayer started, drowning out all my thoughts. I closed my eyes, let the sound vibrate through me, and found my head much more clear when it stopped. Relieved, I turned my attention to Ceyden’s book of poems. A quick glance told me they’d be best read at home, not because of nefarious undertones, but because I feared them likely to throw me too much into the honeymoon spirit. I was not at the yalı and so had to contain the emotions coursing through me as I devoured page after page.

“Satisfactory reading?” Colin asked, slipping into the chair across from me. I’d no idea how much time had passed since he’d left me. Poetry, it seemed, was an undeniable distraction.

“You have no idea.”

“Ceyden’s book?” he asked. I hardly looked up, nodding in reply. “Are the notes useful?”

“I have not yet read them. They seemed to be written in Greek, but closer examination proved that wrong.”

“A code?”

“I’m afraid so,” I said.

“I doubt it’s a difficult one. What have you tried to crack it?”

“Nothing. I’m entirely distracted.” I flipped pages and read to him:

You’ve so distracted me,

your absence fans my love.

Don’t ask how.

Then you come near.

“Do not... ,” I say, and

“Do not... ,” you answer.

Don’t ask why

this delights me.

“Ah, Rumi. How far have you got in the book? It gets even better.”

“Rumi, yes, you’re right,” I said. I had not been, before now, much familiar with the works of the famous thirteenth-century Persian poet. “Is there anything you don’t know?”

“Sadly, yes. All too much, in fact.”

“How does it get better?”

“Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absentminded. / Someone sober will worry about things going badly. / Let the lover be.”

“Lovely, but a bit tame,” I said, smiling.

“Keep reading, my dear. Keep reading.”

“Can’t you just recite the good parts to me?”

“Maybe later, if you’re well behaved.” A waiter placed a glass cup of tea nestled on a bronze saucer in front of him. “Don’t you want to know what I learned from Sir Richard?”

“Of course,” I said.

“The cross is Benjamin’s. He recognized it at once. Furthermore, he had noticed his son hasn’t been wearing it of late and asked him about it.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Quite. Benjamin said he’d lost it when the bandits attacked him en route to Constantinople after he’d learned of Ceyden’s death.”

“This is dreadful,” I said. “Did you tell him about the messenger?”

“I felt it the right thing to do. He was deeply concerned, but convinced that his son could not have been involved in the murder.”

“That’s hardly surprising. What do you think?”

“I’ve no idea yet.”

“Did you talk to Benjamin as well?” I asked.

“I didn’t,” he said. “He passed through as I was speaking to his father, and I thought he might respond better to you. He seems to consider me as someone on Sir Richard’s side.”

“I’ll go to him as soon as I can.”

“Thank you. I do adore your competence. I never have to worry that you’ll flail.” He smiled and bent his head to look at the book in front of me. “May I?”

“Of course.” I passed him the tattered volume. It was a pleasure to watch him work, his dark eyes exuding confidence, his wavy hair tumbling over a forehead knotted with concentration. He reached for a piece of paper and pulled a pencil from his pocket. “Surely it can’t be this easy.”

I leaned across the narrow table, craning my neck to see what he wrote.

“If all she did was replace each letter...” His voice trailed as he scrawled the alphabet across the top of the paper. “Of course, we’ll run into problems if she was writing in Turkish, but given that the book’s in English and Turkish would be too obvious for someone living in the harem...” He fell silent again, flipping pages and writing notes, his lips tugging towards a smile. “I can’t believe it.”

“She didn’t change the letters?” I asked, looking at the Greek letters he’d written beneath the Roman alphabet, ? under “a,” ? under “b,” and so on.

“It appears not.”

“She must not have been trying very hard to hide what she was doing.”

“English is not the first language of the harem. She probably thought she was being exceedingly clever.”

“It must have been difficult for her,” I said. “She had such trouble with it.”

“Let’s transcribe. No sense getting excited only to find it’s useless and uninteresting.”

Useless and uninteresting were not, perhaps, the right words. Confusing and intriguing, more like. She’d written a record, documenting time she’d spent following someone she did not name, someone who left the harem at seemingly regular intervals with groups of other concubines and who spent no small number of nights with the sultan.

“Simple jealousy?” I asked. “She wanted his attention, he was giving it to someone else? She might have been studying her rival.”

“But there’s nothing that would be of use in that way—no descriptions of clothing, no notes on what this person reads, what her interests are.”

“Is that what one should take account of when considering a rival?”

“Well, if this other woman captured the sultan’s interest, would it not make sense to imitate her in an attempt to draw his attention away?”

“Not at all,” I said. “Imitation is at best a faded effort. She’d need to find a way to shine in her own right. This feels more nefarious—as if she were stalking this other woman.”

“Stalking her?”

“And perhaps stealing her jewelry. So far, I see nothing that suggests blackmail.”

“We know at least one piece of it belonged to Perestu,” he said.

“Who was obviously not spending nights with the sultan.”

“She keeps referring to someone and his special meetings,” I said, handing him my paper. “Could it be Jemal? She might have been jealous if he had a close friendship with another concubine.”

“Roxelana,” he said. “Transcribe the rest of what’s written in the book, see if there’s any clue in them.”

“We should also take note of the poems by which she wrote. There may be some significance to them.”

“I think you should read them all aloud to me,” Colin said. “I might catch something you miss.”

“Or distract us both from our purpose.”

He reached across the table for my hand and kissed it, his lips too soft and insistent for public decency. “Precisely my intention. Must I remind you again that this is our honeymoon?”

“You might, instead, show me. Is there any reason we can’t go home now?” I asked.

The speed with which my husband ushered me to the docks was topped only by the effort expended by our boatman, who’d been inspired by an egregious tip. Colin swung me onto our patio when we’d reached the yalı, then swept me into his arms and carried me into the house. But no sooner had he pushed open the door than we were greeted by the sound of a voice, its American accent unmistakable.

“It’s beastly, I know, to have three on a honeymoon, but you’ll simply have to forgive me.”

“Margaret!” I cried as Colin put me down. I rushed over and hugged my friend.

“What a delightful surprise,” he said. His voice was sincere, but I read the disappointment in his eyes. There was no question he adored Margaret, but I knew he’d have been more welcoming had she arrived even two hours later. “I have a suspicion that you wouldn’t object to a glass of whiskey while you explain to us your motives for crashing our honeymoon.”

“Can’t say I would,” Margaret said. “I’ve made a narrow escape from Medusa. She’s napping at the hotel and expects me to be doing the same. Expects.”

“She’d be horrified if she knew you were here,” I said. “I remember all too well how much her former employer dislikes me. Remember when you were staying with Mrs. Taylor and she told her butler not to admit me to her house?” Margaret had spent the previous Season staying with friends of her mother’s. During that time, it had been more than difficult for me to gain admittance to most homes in London because of a series of despicable rumors savaging my reputation. And while most of society had forgot the controversy, Mrs. Taylor was still cutting me dead when last I saw her.