AS Yashim ran across the First Court of the Seraglio, he noticed that it was almost completely deserted: with the New Guard installed in the square and preventing anyone from crossing, it was something he might have expected. The few men who remained seemed to have gathered beneath the great plane tree. The Janissary Tree. Yashim shot them a nervous glance as he scuttled over the cobbled walk, his brown cloak billowing behind him.
At the Ortakapi Gate, five halberdiers of the selamlik, not wearing curls, stood forward in a body to challenge him. Two of them held pikes in their hands; the others were armed only with the dagger, but their cloaks were pinned back and they stood legs akimbo with their right hands cradling the hilts stuffed into their pantaloons.
“Bear up, men!” Yashim cried as he stepped into the light. “Yashim Togalu, on the sultan’s service!”
They stepped warily aside to let him pass.
The wind that had been whipping his cloak against his legs was still: for a moment he marveled at the great space that opened up in front of him before he plunged down an alley of cypress, struck by the still blackness of the trees, by the darkness that enveloped him almost at the center of Ottoman power. Only the thin spark of a lamp at the far end of the tunnel prevented him from succumbing to the frightening atmosphere of a wood at night.
He burst out of the alley and crossed swiftly to the portico of the last, most numinous gate of all the gates that defined the power of the Sublime Porte: the Porte del’ Felicita, the Gateway of Happiness, which led from the workaday Second Court where viziers, scribes, archivists, ambassadors kicked their heels or rapped out the orders that controlled the lives of men from the Red Sea to the Danube. Beyond it lay the sacred precincts of the Third Court, where one enormous family led an existence made precious by the presence of the sultan, the shah-in-shah, God’s very representative on Earth.
The representative’s doors, however, were firmly closed.
His fist made no echo on the iron-studded gates: he might have been beating stone. Exasperated, he took a few steps back and looked upward. The huge eaves jutted forward ten feet or more, in classical Ottoman style. He ran his eyes along the walls. The outer walls were built up with the imperial kitchens, a long series of domes, like bowls stacked on a shelf: there was no way through there. He turned to the left and began to walk quickly toward the archives.
No one challenged him as he placed his hand on the inlaid doors and pushed. The door creaked back, and he stepped into the vestibule. The door ahead stood slightly ajar, and in a minute Yashim was back in the familiar dark archive room.
He called softly. “Ibou?”
No answer. He called again, a little louder. “Ibou? Are you there? It’s me, Yashim.”
The tiny candle at the far end of the room was snuffed out for a moment, then it reappeared. Someone had moved in the darkness.
“Don’t be afraid. I need your help.”
He heard the slap of sandals on the stone floor and Ibou stepped forward into the light. His eyes were very round.
“What can you do?” he almost whispered.
“I need to use the back door, Ibou. Can you let me through?”
“I have a key. But—I don’t want to go.”
“No, you stay. Do you know what’s happening?”
“I am new. I wasn’t asked—but it is some kind of meeting. Dangerous, too.”
“Come on.”
The little doorway gave onto the corridor in which the Valide Kosem had been dragged to her death. Yashim clasped Ibou’s hand.
“Good luck,” the young man whispered.
The door to the guard room was closed. Yashim opened it with a quick flick of the handle and stepped inside.
“I am summoned,” he announced.
Approach.
The halberdiers stood frozen.
They made no effort to stop Yashim opening the door, as though they were clockwork soldiers that someone had forgotten to wind.
For a moment he, too, stood transfixed, looking into the Court of the Valide Sultan.
Then he took a step back and very softly closed the door.