I thought a lot about Irene and what she had done at the end. I went back over what I had observed of her relationship with Murat, the wordless understanding that had shown itself in everything from the pouring of a perfect cup of coffee to the instant deployment of a murderous weapon. I had seen, in that moment of terrible grief as she cradled her dying steward in her arms, that she loved him. It had been clear that she had never considered he might fall in her service and that, for a little at least, the loss of him had far outweighed the value of Cybele’s Gift. Had she realized, in that moment, that she did not want to go on without him? Perhaps; she could have escaped with us, and she had chosen to stay behind. As for the nature of their love, that I would never know, and maybe it did not matter. Maybe it was enough to be aware that Irene had possessed the capacity for such feelings.
Stoyan’s behavior, to which he adhered with stern resolve throughout the voyage, meant I was thrown into Duarte’s company. He, at least, seemed happy to spend time with me. I heard about his family. They were wealthy; the Esperança was not the only vessel they owned. He told me about his early rebellion against his father’s expectations, his travels as a lowly crewman on various ships, how he had risen to be captain of his own vessel—not the Esperança, which had been a later acquisition, but a more modest one-master. He had indeed supplemented his income with acts of piracy in those early years and had garnered a reputation as ruthless and successful. The long debt of honor to Mustafa had gradually changed him. He said that he no longer employed the kind of tactics he once had, and I believed him, for our journey had convinced me he was a good man at heart. Indeed, he was now a wealthy man in his own right, with no need to engage in underhand practices. He was, in fact, the respectable trader his father had always wanted him to be—he had just taken a little longer to get there than his father would have liked.
I asked him what he would do now that his mission was over, and he said he would go home for a while. The crew was overdue for time off. And Pero’s wife must be told that she was a widow. She would be provided for, as would the fatherless children. There was a code amongst seafarers that required this.
It seemed to me that this account was not quite complete, that there was something on Duarte’s mind he was not telling me. I saw it in the quality of his smile and in the guarded eyes. I did not press it. We were all tired. But it seemed to me Duarte was somewhat adrift now, as a man might well be when his energies have gone for so long toward a single purpose and that purpose suddenly ceases to exist. He needed time to come to terms with the change, to work out what it meant. We read poetry together, drank wine, sometimes sat in companionable silence. It was pleasant, but it could not soothe the ache in my chest that never went away.
We did not encounter the red-sailed ship. Perhaps it was still moored in that little bay, waiting for Irene and Murat to return. Without her orders, I did not suppose the crew would bother pursuing us. I wondered if I would have to report her death and Murat’s to the authorities in Istanbul. I was much relieved when Duarte told me he would take care of this. He would, he said, give a version of our story that could not lead the authorities to Mustafa’s village or expose Irene’s secret to the world. If there was evidence of the cult in her house, something that would reveal the truth to her husband, there was very little we could do about it.
And so fifteen days after our departure, we sailed back into the Golden Horn. The moment the Esperança was tied up at the dock, Duarte got a boy to run up to the Genoese han to advise my father that I was back safe and well and would be there shortly. Stoyan took my little bundle, which contained Tati’s embroidery and the clothing I had been wearing, an Anatolian countrywoman’s outfit given to me in the mountain village to replace my shredded sailor’s clothes. I wore the Greek-style dress that Irene had given me the last time I was in her hamam, the day when Stoyan burst in on us. I could not believe that was less than three weeks ago.
Duarte gave me a book—the Odyssey—and kissed me on the lips at the top of the gangway to a chorus of whistles and amiable catcalls from the crew. As Stoyan and I walked down, their voices rang out behind us: Paula, de brancura singela… I was close to tears and annoyed with myself for being so upset. We had all known it could not last forever.
Father did not utter a single word of reproach but simply gathered me in his arms and thanked God that I was safe. I told him the bare bones of the story but omitted quite a bit of detail, knowing how upset he would be to hear of the physical hardships and danger Tati and I had faced. He listened quietly, as he had six years ago when we had been obliged to explain to him that his eldest daughter had gone to the Other Kingdom and that he would never see her again. When I was finished, Father asked a couple of questions: Was Tati looking well? Had I been injured at all? And lastly, was I happy with the final fate of Cybele’s Gift? If so, Father said, he would draw a line under that matter and we would simply move on. I assured him that what we had done was for the best, even though it meant his voyage had been a commercial failure. It was not an easy conversation.
Stoyan was silent and tense, though when Father embraced him and thanked him for bringing me back safely, he thawed a little. We would be leaving on the Stea de Mare in a few days’ time, and there was much still to be done. If we had not returned when we had, Father would have stayed in Istanbul and kept on searching for us. Because of that uncertainty, he had not finalized the accounts or completed packing the goods we had purchased to take back to Transylvania. He would need me to help with the former and Stoyan for the latter.
I was so tired I could hardly stay on my feet. I greeted Giacomo and Maria and thanked them for their help. They had not only nursed my father back to health but had also put a great deal of effort into assisting him with the search. Father scrutinized me as I swayed and yawned, then told me the accounts could wait until tomorrow. I went to bed and slept for fourteen hours. I got up, washed, and ate breakfast, then went back to bed, promising Father I would do the work in the afternoon. He and Stoyan were busy in the downstairs chamber we were using for our goods, packing up silks.
I did not wake until the midday call to prayer rang out over the Genoese mahalle. I found Father out on the gallery drinking tea. He had sent Stoyan to the docks with a cartload of items to be stowed on the ship.
“I’ve had a visitor,” Father said. “Sit down, Paula. You still look exhausted.” He stood and gestured to the tea vendor down in the courtyard.
“A visitor?” I queried, subsiding onto a chair. “Who?”
“Your friend Duarte Aguiar. He paid me a formal call.”
“I’m sorry I missed him.” It was unsurprising. Duarte would have felt obliged to give some explanation, I imagined, for what must appear to the outside world as a kind of abduction. “When is Stoyan coming back, Father?”
“In time for supper, I imagine.” Father was looking at me quizzically. “Why do you ask?”
“No special reason.” I couldn’t bear that we should leave with things the way they were between Stoyan and me. But he had made it clear that he didn’t want to entertain my suggestion. On all sorts of levels, this was perfectly logical. We were completely different. Our homes were many miles apart. I was a scholarly girl of prosperous merchant stock, he an uneducated farmer from a remote village. He had sworn to find his brother and take the news to his mother, and I was on my way back home. It could be years before I traveled this way again. I might never come. What chance of success could a partnership between us possibly have?
“Mmm-hmm,” murmured Father. “Have you two argued? I’ve noticed quite a frosty atmosphere between you. And Stoyan seems…” He hesitated, searching for the right word. “He seems disturbed.”
“We had a disagreement. Don’t trouble yourself with it.” Oh, how I wished one of my sisters were here, Jena in particular, so I could unburden my sadness and confusion to her and seek some practical advice. This wasn’t something I could tell Father.
After I’d been scowling into the middle
distance for a while, Father said, “Aren’t you going to ask me what Aguiar wanted?”
“Wanted? Wasn’t he here to apologize to you?”
The tea vendor’s boy had come up with a laden tray. I helped myself to a glass and sipped gratefully.
“He asked for your hand in marriage.” Father sounded mildly amused as he delivered this thunderbolt.
“He…what?”
“Made a formal proposal of marriage, accompanied by all the information a father expects at such a time. It sounds as if the fellow is quite wealthy, Paula. And the family is well thought of by the rulers of that country, if Aguiar is to be believed. All this, of course, weighed against his dubious personal reputation. He spoke highly of you. You’ve clearly made an impression.”
I was almost speechless. “Why didn’t he say anything to me?” Never in my wildest flight of imagination had I foreseen this. I struggled to make sense of how I felt. Confused and unsettled, certainly. But pleased as well. After Stoyan’s rebuff, this made me feel just a little better about myself. Duarte did have a lot to offer, far more than my father could learn from a quick interview. “What did you tell him?” I asked.
“I said no, of course.” Father was calm, his gaze fixed on me.
“You said no? Just like that? Without even asking me?” I was outraged. Perhaps this was what run-of-the-mill fathers did, fathers of the kind who did not view their daughters as intelligent, independent human beings with opinions of their own. But not my father.
“You needed your sleep. Don’t be upset, Paula. A man who gives up after a single refusal is not worth considering as a son-in-law, in my view. I expect he’ll be back. Are you saying you actually want to marry the fellow?”
I felt a blush rising to my cheeks. “I’m not saying that at all, Father. Only that I would like to be consulted before such a decision is made. It is the rest of my life, after all.”
“Portugal is a long way off.” He looked suddenly desolate. I got up and went to put my arms around him.
“He might not come back anyway,” I said. “Don’t worry, Father. Now where are these accounts?”
Stoyan returned briefly, procured supper for the three of us, then asked my father if he might absent himself until tomorrow morning. He was still trying to avoid me, I knew it. There were questions in my eyes, perhaps—questions whose answers would be too painful to speak aloud.
As we ate in awkward silence, it came to me that I did not need to look at Stoyan to make an inventory of all the things that pleased me about him: his imposing height and broad shoulders, his muscular arms, the cascade of thick dark hair, the amber eyes that could be as gentle as a dove’s or as fierce as a wolf’s. The pale intensity of his complexion, marked by the jagged scar whose trajectory I would like to trace with my fingers. The strong bones of cheeks and jaw. Most of all, his rare wisdom, an inner stillness and understanding that went far beyond such surface cleverness as a capacity to read and write or a facility with numbers. There was so little time left. His silence troubled me, and so did the forbidding look on his face. I knew how strong-minded he was. The shield he had set up around himself was almost perfect. But tonight, for the first time since the voyage home, I thought I could see through that barrier to the pain it concealed. In Stoyan’s guarded eyes, I glimpsed a perfect reflection of what was in my own heart, and a tiny flame of hope flared inside me. Perhaps, after all, it was not too late. I must talk to him again, and this time I must get it right. When he came back tomorrow morning, I would do it.
Father gave Stoyan leave of absence, and we spent the evening quietly packing our personal items. There was only one load of goods to go to the ship now. We would be sailing the day after tomorrow. We talked a little more about Cybele’s Gift and what its true importance was. So many folk had wanted to track it down for so many different reasons. Irene and Murat had been prepared to kill for it. So had the Sheikh-ul-Islam, if it was true that the Mufti had ordered Salem’s death for, as he saw it, encouraging pagan practices within the city.
“The leaders of the Other Kingdom back home always intend good for human folk provided we can learn our lessons,” I told Father. “I’m sure their counterparts here, like the crone we met in the caves, are exactly the same, though their methods are more brutal. They wanted Cybele’s Gift to go back to Mustafa’s village. It’s more than just another primitive artifact; it’s a recognition of old, good ways. It’s the same lesson they tried to teach Cezar when he intended to chop down our forest rather than harbor Ileana’s people. Respect for…for Mother Earth, I suppose you could say.”
“I had heard,” Father said as he tightened a cord around a box and knotted it, “that Cybele’s rites were somewhat violent and bloody. That does not seem entirely apt for this message you set out.”
“Maybe they once were. What we saw was stylized: people in masks, men in women’s clothing, and so on. No bloodletting, just dancing, games, and music. Irene set herself up as a priestess of Cybele. But I think she got things wrong when she restricted her rites to women only, with Murat, as a eunuch, the only exception. Up in that mountain village, men and women mingled freely and seemed equal, though it was the old women who led the ritual.”
“And what of the inscription?” Father asked. “Did you discover its meaning?”
“It’s not a key to instant good fortune. That legend must have grown up around Cybele’s Gift over the years it couldn’t be found. The inscription is just simple advice on how to live our lives well. Cybele tells her followers that if they live in harmony with the earth, respecting what she provides, she will continue to nurture them. And she tells them to celebrate the lives they have. That’s a message for everyone, men and women both. The villagers seemed to think the world was going through a time when that wisdom might not be understood. They said Cybele’s Gift, and her words, needed to be hidden away for a while, kept safe.”
“With folk like Irene of Volos in the world, as well as the Sheikh-ul-Islam, no doubt that is wise,” Father said. “Christian leaders in Istanbul would be equally determined to stamp out any evidence of idolatry, as they would see it. As for me, I am somewhat stunned by the whole sequence of events. I do not believe I will be trading in religious artifacts for some time. I’m certain you are not giving me the whole story, Paula. You think to spare a frail old man, perhaps.” There was a twinkle in his eye.
“You, frail?” I said. “You’re an exceptional parent, Father. I’ve always known that.” It was true. How many fathers would be so ready to accept what I had told him? How many would have allowed a daughter to come on the voyage in the first place, let alone forgiven so quickly the impetuous and crazy act that had seen her spirited away on a pirate ship?
Morning came, and with it not Stoyan but Duarte da Costa Aguiar, striding into the courtyard at an hour perhaps a little too early for a social visit but not too early for my father and me. We had been up since the morning call to prayer, getting the last of the goods ready for Stoyan to take down to the docks when he arrived. I was wearing my plainest gown and had my hair pinned tightly back under a scarf.
Father saw Duarte coming and said to me, “Choose wisely, Paula. You’re a fine girl, full of spirit and intelligence. I may not like this man very much, but I can see that in many ways he’s ideal for you. You and he have a great deal in common. I suggest you take him up to the gallery and leave me to get on with this.”
I wiped clammy hands on my skirt, suddenly overcome with nerves. I would have liked a chance to wash, to brush my hair, to put on a better outfit, perhaps the plum-colored silk and the lovely veil Duarte had given me.
“You look fine, Paula,” Father said, setting his hands on my shoulders and kissing me gently on the cheek. “Go on now.”
Well, Duarte had seen me grimy and sweaty with my clothing in rags, so perhaps it didn’t matter. Now he greeted me with a smile, exchanged courteous words with my father, then followed me up the steps to the gallery, where we seated ourselves at the little table. I wished
I had brought something to occupy my hands. I clutched them together in my lap and cleared my throat.
“Father told me about yesterday,” I said awkwardly. “I was…surprised. Very surprised.”
Duarte had dressed for the occasion. His shirt was of pristine linen, his tunic and trousers of finest wool in the light blue-gray he seemed to favor. His boots were buffed to a shine. Around his neck he wore my red scarf. I considered the aristocratic features, the mischievous dark eyes, the glossy black hair caught neatly back with a ribbon. The upright, athletic body. I tried to imagine being his wife. “To be honest,” I added, “you’ve never struck me as the marrying kind of man.”
“Up until recently, I was not,” he said, and I heard the slight tremor in his voice. He was nervous, too. “Our recent journey, the pleasure we took in each other’s company, the way the whole ship came to life while we had you on board…these things have changed my mind on the issue. The fulfillment of my debt of honor has caused me to reassess the future. Master Teodor will have told you, no doubt, that I gave him an inventory of my personal resources and those of my family. I want you to know that I did so not because I believe the final decision will be made on the basis of my wealth but so that your father will be reassured that I can offer you a secure future.”
“I see,” I said, wondering if I should tell him there was no need to set such details out for me.
“Paula, you know what kind of man I am. My past conduct has not always been entirely ethical. My life is one of constant movement and change. The success of this mission will not alter that. I love the sea. I love the adventure of it, the opportunities it offers, the surprises and challenges.” He had risen to his feet now and was standing by the railing with his back to me, tapping his fingers against his leg.