Tasha Alexander - Tears of Pearl

I am, your most devoted friend,

Ivy

“I wish we weren’t so far from her,” I said, pacing in front of Colin, waving Ivy’s letter as I walked the terrace where we’d been having breakfast, having to force myself to breathe, fear creeping through my skin. “She needs me.”

“I will contact Robert,” Colin said. “Find out what he knows. If things are serious enough, we can, of course, return home at once.”

I pressed my hands to my temples. “But what of Ceyden?”

“The dead can wait,” he said, wrapping his arms around me. “We can come back after the child is born.” He rested his cheek against mine. “I’ve never seen you upset like this. You’re trembling. Try to put your mind at ease. The most likely scenario is that Robert’s response shall relieve all your worries.”

“I want more than anything to believe that,” I said, having little faith it would happen. Ivy was the least alarmist person I’d ever known. Writing such a letter—one that so directly addressed both her condition and her fears—would have mortified her. If anything, she would let me believe things were not so dire as they truly were. “I don’t think I could survive if anything happened to her. She’s been beside me my whole life.”

“You would. I’d make you.”

“I’m not sure I’d thank you for it.”

“You forget how persuasive I can be.” He put his arms around me, but I stiffened instead of relaxing against him. “We must distract you. Worry accomplishes nothing.”

“I don’t want idle distraction,” I said. “Let’s focus on our work.”

He pulled back from me, searched my face, his lips closed but pulled in a firm smile. “You’re quite certain?”

“Beyond doubt. I don’t know any other way.”

“Come with me to the embassy, then. The ambassador has asked to see me.”

Even before we’d reached the entrance to the British embassy in Pera, it was evident that we’d stumbled onto a scene. The door swung open as we approached, and Sir Richard stalked out, a feverish glint in his eyes.

“This is an outrage!” Sir Richard turned to face Sir William, the ambassador, staggering as if he might keel over. “I’ve done nothing but serve my country and will not tolerate being treated like a common criminal.”

“Richard, you know that shall never happen,” Sir William said. “No one is suggesting such a thing. But you must understand that given the circumstances, I cannot allow you to remain in your position. Now, when you are exonerated—”

“Outrageous,” Sir Richard said, slurring the word and interrupting the ambassador. “And I have nothing further to say.” He continued his unsteady march in the direction of the gates, barely pausing to raise his hat to me.

“What on earth?” I asked, grabbing his arm and stopping him. “More missing papers?”

“Yes, but it’s gone beyond that,” Sir Richard said.

“What happened?” Colin asked, his firm voice the sort that would always elicit a reply.

“I’m sure William would be all too happy to fill you in. My opinion seems to have been rendered irrelevant.”

“I want to hear your side, not his,” Colin said.

Sir Richard sighed and pressed his hands together. “When I arrived for work this morning, he was waiting in my office. Two of my colleagues’ desks were ransacked overnight, and I was the last person to leave. There were six files stolen. One of them was found in my safe.”

“And the other five?” I asked.

“Were sitting on a table in the library at my house,” Sir Richard said.

“How were they discovered?” Colin frowned.

“I had already looked in the safe,” Sir William said. “And asked to be allowed to search Richard’s home.”

“As I knew I’d taken nothing, I of course gave him permission.”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you, Richard.” Bags hung heavy under the ambassador’s eyes. “But you must understand that I cannot allow you to continue in your position until we’ve sorted all this out. I’ve a responsibility—”

“I have spent nearly all my life in the Consular and Colonial Service. To be forced out now, under such circumstances, is unconscionable.”

“It’s only temporary,” the ambassador said. “You’ll be back in no time.”

“If you were confident of that, you wouldn’t be pushing me out at all.” He looked at me. “Will you excuse me, Lady Emily? I’d like very much to go home.” He staggered off the embassy grounds, nearly tripping over his own feet.

“What more is there to this, William?” Colin.

“I spoke to his son, who confirmed there was a stack of files on his desk last night. I don’t suspect Richard’s being intentionally deceitful—but he’s been so careless of late. Not paying attention to the details of his job. I’ve had to rebuke him several times, and I’m afraid this was simply a botched effort to make everyone else around him look incompetent—to prove he’s not the only one misplacing things.”

“So his position is in peril?” I asked.

“Honestly, Lady Emily, I think he’s coming unhinged with grief. He hardly acts like himself anymore. I’m trying to give him time to recover. If he does, and regains his competence, I’d happily have him back. Until then, however, I can’t have on my staff a gentleman in his condition. It appears he’s even begun drinking in excess. Sutcliffe found him asleep at his desk earlier in the week. Too much Scotch.”

I’d been looking through the gate as he spoke and was distracted by the sight of Jemal striding along the street outside, his posture more impossibly erect than usual. Stunned to see him outside of the palace, I turned to Colin and murmured to him what I’d seen. He looked at me with serious eyes.

“Follow him,” he said. “I’ll take care of things here and meet you back at the yalı.”

I excused myself at once and set off after him, barely able even to keep him in view. He was moving quickly and had a considerable head start. He passed through the streets of Pera, in front of fashionable shops and beautifully appointed homes, gradually making his way down a steep hill to the waters of the Golden Horn and the Galata Bridge. As I crossed in front of the train station, I remembered arriving with Colin, full of newlywed bliss and a different plan for these weeks than reality was prepared to offer us. Going uphill again, Jemal climbed towards Topkapı but did not enter the palace grounds, instead continuing in the direction of the spires in the distance.

I’d now closed enough ground between us that I could have called for his attention, and considered doing exactly that until I watched as he turned into the park between Aya Sofya and the Blue Mosque, headed directly for a bench on which sat Benjamin St. Clare. I stepped behind a palm tree (a pathetic hiding place, but my options were beyond limited) to observe them. Jemal did not sit, nor did Benjamin stand. I could not hear anything they said, but saw more than enough. The eunuch pulled out from his jacket a velvet bag that looked familiar, all the more so when he removed from it a bowstring.

I took in every detail I could. The velvet was similar to but not an exact match for that containing Bezime’s bowstring. Hers had been a deep blue, this was black. Benjamin blanched as he looked at it and threw up his hands. Jemal bent over, pointing in the Englishman’s face, his arm shaking. Shaking his head, Benjamin pushed away the bowstring and rose from the bench before running in the direction of the Bosphorus.

Jemal remained standing, stationary. I debated only for an instant before walking towards him. “What’s going on?” I asked.

He did not look surprised to see me, did not miss a beat. “Nothing, Lady Emily.”

“Why aren’t you at the palace?”

“You think I’m a prisoner? You think I cannot leave?”

“No, of course, but I saw—forgive me, I saw your exchange with Mr. St. Clare. You have a bowstring. Why were you showing it to him?”

“Bezime showed it to you. Why should you care with whom I decide to share it?”

“Surely it’s not the same one,” I said.

“Of course it is.” His sharp voice snapped.

“But why has the velvet changed?”

He leaned close to me. “Not everything is pertinent to your inquiries.”

“But—”

“If you’ll excuse me, I’m late for a funeral. A friend of my sister’s died in childbirth. A sad story, as I’m sure you can well imagine. They’d been inseparable since they were girls. A terrible tragedy.”

His eyes danced too much to lend any hint of veracity to his statement, and my stomach turned as I wondered why he would say such a thing to me. He might have overheard us speaking, or Bezime must have told him about my condition—alleged condition—but that he’d managed to hit upon my one real fear stunned me. Could he know something about Ivy? Did Bezime know something? It couldn’t be possible, but the coincidence was too much to bear.

I claimed to put no stake in anything magical or psychic, but all at once I was gripped with terror. Jemal took his leave from me before I could speak again, and I found myself standing alone in the park, wrestling with unsettling emotions and trying to forget the hideous sound of my aunt’s dying cries. Tears pooled in my eyes, and I looked to the sky, brilliant azure, hoping they would disappear. Instead, inevitably, they streamed down my face, stinging. Desperate to find some sort of comfort, I looked at the two magnificent buildings within my sight and headed for the Blue Mosque.

Aya Sofya might have proven a more reasonable choice. It had, after all, once been a Christian church. But so out of my element was I that I knew, absent of conscious thought, listening only to instinct, that solace would come only from something removed from all that I’d previously known. When I reached the courtyard of the imposing seventeenth-century building, constructed on the foundations of what had been the city’s Byzantine palace, I pulled a scarf over my hat, draping the soft cloth around my neck, covering the bottom of my face and all of my hair.