Cybele's Secret Page 6

  Our refreshments finished, we walked along the colonnade to a tall, arched doorway with panels of colored tiles on either side, red on blue. Irene made it clear Stoyan could not come into the library. Without comment, he placed himself just outside the door.

  Irene’s collection was housed in a vast, airy chamber on two levels. The upper was furnished with crimson-cushioned divans and cunning brass stands to hold items at a convenient height for reading, while around the lower level, a step down, were shelves on which numerous bound books were stored flat. There were low tables holding writing materials and cedar chests suitable for scrolls and other documents.

  Two Turkish women in robes and veils were seated cross-legged in a corner, poring over a faded manuscript laid out on a table before them. Their faces were uncovered, and they looked up and nodded to us as we entered.

  “We have started a catalog,” Irene said, indicating a bound notebook lying open on a stand. “You’re welcome to look at that, or perhaps I can find something of particular interest?”

  I hesitated. It had occurred to me last night that I might use this visit as an opportunity to seek out information about Cybele, something that might give Father and me the edge in our trading negotiations. Knowledge, I believed, was the strongest weapon in any battle, and a fierce bidding contest was quite like a war. If I could find material about Cybele’s legend here, or about the mysterious inscription on the artifact, we might use that to convince Barsam the Elusive that we were the right buyers for the piece, even in the face of some other merchant making an equal offer. But I wasn’t going to reveal trade secrets to Irene, friendly as she was. “I like myths and legends,” I said. “Is there anything about the local folklore? The only thing is, although I can read Greek, Latin, and French, I would have problems with Arabic script. I learned a little Turkish when I was in Braov, but only speaking, not reading.”

  Irene’s lovely eyes widened. “Your education must have been remarkable. We may have something of that kind. There have been several recent donations to the collection, and we still need to go through them. You realize, I suppose, that the high language of the Ottomans, used for scholarly documents, is a peculiar mixture of Arabic, Turkish, and Persian? If you wish to pursue your studies here in Istanbul, you’ll need help with translation.”

  “I know,” I said, wondering how long it would take to learn Arabic.

  “I will ask Ariadne to see what she can find for you,” Irene said, beckoning to a young woman in a green gown who had been working at another table. “Meanwhile, perhaps you’d like to leaf through the catalog, as far as it goes.”

  I settled myself in a spot where Stoyan could keep me in view while Irene went over to talk to the Turkish women. After a while, Ariadne returned, her pretty face bearing an expression of apology.

  “Kyria, I cannot locate anything of the precise nature you require,” she said. “That is not to say it does not exist somewhere in the collection. A great deal of our material is yet unsorted. Our storeroom holds many loose papers, individual leaves of manuscripts and so on.”

  “Perhaps I could look through some of those papers?” I asked her. “I could make a note of what they are as I go—that might be useful for your catalog. I have experience at that kind of work.” I looked around for Irene, not sure if it was appropriate for me to make such a suggestion, but it seemed she had gone out. I caught sight of Stoyan in the doorway, his eyes steady on me.

  Ariadne did not invite me to investigate the storeroom, but she brought out a large box filled with single leaves of paper and parchment, none of which appeared to have come from the same original manuscript. “There are numerous boxes of this kind,” the girl said. “Kyria Irene receives many such gifts. In time they will be itemized and recorded. I hope you will find something of interest.” She placed the box beside my table.

  For a scholar like me, this was akin to being handed a treasure chest. I explored the box’s contents, handling each sheet with delicacy. Most were in Arabic script. Some were illustrated, perhaps poetry or histories. Some I could read; there was a single sheet from a play in Greek, perhaps torn from a bound book, and a page of figures with Latin annotations. I set out each item neatly on the table as I worked my way deeper into the box.

  A fragment caught my eye. I lifted it out with extreme care, for it was ancient and fragile. The script was ornate and regular. I guessed the language was Persian, for one or two such pieces had passed through Father’s hands over the years, and I recognized the style of decoration: tiny, vivid illustrations and elaborate hand-drawn borders full of scrolls and curlicues.

  The pictures were indeed strange. It was not clear whether the figures in them were of men, women, or animals. They reminded me vividly of the Other Kingdom, the fairy realm my sisters and I had visited every full moon through the years of my childhood. While my sisters were dancing, I had spent the better part of those nights in company with a group of most unusual scholars, and they had taught me to look beyond the obvious. Either these were images of just such a magical place, or they were heavy in symbolism. I could see a warrior with the head of a dog, a cat in a hooded cloak, a blindfolded woman with a wolf, someone swinging on a rope…

  The little paintings were so finely detailed I needed my spectacles, which I kept on a chain around my neck and generally used only for very close work. After I had been staring at the page for a while, I started to see a pattern there beyond the regular design of the decorative border. Almost hidden in the dancing confusion of images was a sequence of tiny squares, each different, each showing a sprinkling of lines, twists, and blobs. They were executed in a contrasting style, almost as if they were an afterthought. They seemed familiar, teasing at my memory.

  I glanced up. Ariadne was seated at a table on the lower level and was busy writing. Irene had not returned. In a shadowy corner of the library, there now sat another woman, black-robed, with a needle and thread in one hand and a tattered old cloth in the other. She was fully veiled, save for her eyes, and in the semidark where she sat, even they could not be clearly seen, but I sensed she was watching me. I shivered, remembering the strange figure I had seen, or thought I’d seen, on the Esperança at the dock.

  I turned my attention back to the manuscript. What was it about those little squares that was so familiar? They looked quite out of place, as if designed to catch the reader’s attention. A code? A secret message? Frowning, I turned the page over and saw something I had missed before, words in minuscule writing inserted between border and main text. It was not Persian. It was not Greek, Latin, or any other language I knew. And yet I understood. Find the heart, someone had written, for there lies wisdom. The crown is the destination. A cold sensation passed through me, like a warning of danger. I was gripped by the disturbing feeling that this message, scrawled here by someone I didn’t know, was meant for me. It was an instruction, an order.

  I glanced up, shaking my head to clear it of such ridiculous notions. Across the library, the black-clad woman unfolded her rag of embroidery, and I saw on it, executed in rich color and with what looked like immaculate stitchery, an image of a girl dancing: a girl with rippling black hair and violet-blue eyes, just like my sister Tati. The woman gave a nod and folded her work away.

  This was crazy. I was letting my imagination get out of control. If someone was trying to send me cryptic messages about a quest or mission, they would hardly do so in Irene’s library. I drew a deep breath and turned my attention back to the manuscript. Before I went home today, I would work out what those squares in the border meant.

  I did not realize how much time had passed until I heard my hostess’s voice. She was standing by the next table, gazing at me quizzically. “Your powers of concentration are extraordinary, Paula,” she observed.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, rising ungracefully, for my legs were badly cramped. I glanced over toward the door. Stoyan did not appear to have moved at all. His gaze was intent, watchful. “I do have a habit of getting caught up in my r
eading.” I was tempted to show Irene the manuscript and ask her if she could see the pattern I had been poring over without success. I hesitated. There was something strange going on here, and I could not explain it without revealing that I was familiar with matters magical and otherworldly. This was something my sisters and I did not talk about, save amongst ourselves. I picked up the leaf of paper to put it back in the box, then hesitated, looking at the fragment again. Where a few moments ago there had been small, clear writing squeezed into the narrow space between the text and the border, now there was nothing at all.

  “Is something wrong?” my hostess inquired with a little frown.

  I put the paper back in the box, slipping it partway down the pile of documents. “Nothing,” I said. “I didn’t get quite as far as I hoped this morning, that’s all. It’s a frustration common to scholars.”

  “You’re tired,” Irene said with a smile. “You’ve been working too hard.”

  I glanced around the library. A number of folk were now seated there reading or writing, unobtrusively dressed women who might perhaps have donned these plain robes or cloaks or gowns to pass through the streets to Irene’s haven without attracting too much attention. I had been too absorbed to see them come in. The black-clad person with the embroidery was gone.

  “Do tell me if you’d like any translation done,” my hostess went on. “We’ll help all we can. But now you most certainly need a rest from study. Ariadne, please tell Murat we’ll take coffee in the camekan after our bath.”

  The green-clad girl bowed and left us. I could not be sure if she was a superior kind of servant or a scholar in training. I did like her name, which I knew from the legend of Theseus.

  “I imagine you would like to make use of the hamam, Paula,” Irene said. “I have a woman who does a wonderful massage; just the thing after sitting still over a book for so long.”

  “Thank you.” I was still puzzling over the woman in black and the disappearing writing, wondering if I could actually have imagined both. I didn’t think I was as tired as that.

  The bathhouse was in a separate building at the end of the long colonnade that sheltered Irene’s house from the noonday sun. I could see from the tight look on Stoyan’s face that he wanted me to give Irene a polite refusal and head for home, but I made it clear to him that I was not prepared to sacrifice this opportunity, and he settled to wait once again, this time in the garden by the hamam entry. My hostess and I walked into an airy outer chamber, marble-floored and furnished with shelves and benches. It was both light and private; openings in the domed roof let in the sun, while the windows were shielded by screens pierced with small apertures in a flower pattern. On the wall were pegs from which clothing might be hung. A robed woman with skin darker than any I had seen before offered us folded cloths. I took one, hoping I could guess their purpose without needing to ask.

  “I imagine your upbringing was quite restrictive. You will not be accustomed to disrobing before others,” murmured my hostess as another attendant closed the door behind us. “I am so used to this, I hardly think about it anymore.”

  “I have four sisters. We all shared a bedchamber.” I followed Irene’s lead, slipping off my gown, shift, and smallclothes and wrapping the cloth around my body. I could not help noticing that while my wrap covered me from armpits to thighs with its edges overlapping by two handspans or more, my hostess’s generous curves were barely contained in a cloth of the same dimensions. Irene’s skin had an olive sheen against the white of the linen. Beside her, I felt like a winter creature, a pale thing that seldom saw the sun.

  “Give your things to Nashwa; she will look after them. This little wrap is called a petamal. Another word of Turkish for your vocabulary. Did you bring fresh clothing?”

  “Oh. No, I didn’t think—”

  “I’m sure we can find something for you. It is so refreshing to put on clean linen after the bath.” She spoke to the bath attendant in Turkish.

  “There’s no need…” Now I did feel embarrassed. Istanbul was full of public bathhouses, wells, fountains, and cisterns. Islamic prayers were always preceded by ritual ablutions, so it was unsurprising that facilities for washing were so common in the city. I wondered if Irene thought me grubby and uncouth.

  “Come, Paula, let us go through. Take a pair of these slippers; they’ll keep you from coming to grief on the wet floor of the hamam.”

  I selected a pair from a shelf by the inner door. They were set on little wooden stilts that lifted my feet a handspan from the ground and carried their own kind of peril. I staggered after my hostess into a chamber whose heat hit me like a blow. Sweat broke out instantly all over my body. Basins were set at intervals around the walls, with copper piping running along above them and spouts extending over each receptacle. This roof, too, was domed but was far higher than that of the entrance chamber. Holes pierced in the stone admitted sunlight; in the chamber’s corners burned lamps in intricately wrought brass holders. In the center stood a big marble slab, damp with condensation. On various benches a number of women sat chatting. All were completely naked and apparently quite at ease. At one of the basins, a girl had been washing her hair; it hung down her slim form to her knees, ebony-dark. On the far side of the slab, a small, capable-looking female clad in a shiftlike garment and sandals was administering a massage to a lady who lay on her stomach, eyes closed.

  “Here we sit awhile and sweat,” Irene said, seating herself on a bench and slipping out of her petamal in one movement to expose her ripely mature body, all lush curves and smooth bronze skin. Her dark eyes met mine. I saw it as a challenge and took off my own wrapping before sitting down beside her.

  “You have not been in a hamam before?” she asked me.

  “Never.”

  “It is quite significant in the lives of Turkish women, Paula. A visit to the hamam is not simply an opportunity to bathe. It is a social event, a highlight of the week. At the bathhouse, women can exchange their news, look over prospective daughters-in-law, enjoy the company of a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. Some stay all day.”

  “Really?” Clearly I had been missing quite a bit as a result of Father’s extreme caution over my personal safety.

  “After the sweat, we wash here in the hot room, and if you wish, Olena will provide the massage,” Irene said. “She has magic hands; I recommend it. There is a small, deep pool in the next chamber, not so hot. I like to immerse myself there before drying off. You will not find that in the public hamams; it is a refinement I chose to add. As a child, I swam in the ocean. I miss such freedoms. When we are dry, we take refreshments and chat. If you enjoy the experience, you must come back and repeat it whenever you wish.”

  “You’re very generous.”

  “Not at all. I am a strong supporter of opportunities for women, which places me severely out of step with the culture in which I live. It delights me to encounter a girl with such a thirst for knowledge. You deserve every bit of encouragement that comes your way, Paula. You remind me of myself as I once was.” She sighed, putting her hands behind her head and stretching out her long legs, feet crossed. It showed off her figure to startling advantage. I kept my eyes on the marble slab, where the masseuse had finished her work and was rearranging her supply of oils, soaps, and sponges. “I imagine young women have few opportunities in Transylvania,” Irene added.

  “In such a place, the opportunities must be found or made,” I said a little stiffly. “Fortunately for me and my sisters, our father saw the value in educating us.”

  “Your level of knowledge and your breadth of interest seem somewhat beyond what might be expected even for a young man of your background,” Irene observed. “Are all your sisters scholars?”

  “Not exactly. Jena studied mathematics. She works in the business, with her husband. When I’m at home, I teach Stela, who is only eleven. She’s quite clever. We’re making a start on Greek.”

  “A little sister, how sweet. Does she stay at home with your mother while
you accompany your father?”

  “My mother is dead.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  “I can’t really remember her; she died so long ago. While we are away, Stela is staying with Jena and Costi. They live next door. Though ‘next door’ is actually quite a long walk through the forest.”

  “And the other sisters? You said four.”

  “Iulia’s married with two children. And Tati…” This was always difficult, even though my sisters and I had practiced the half-truth over and over. “She lives a long way away. We hardly ever see her now.”

  “She wed a man from another land? A merchant, a traveler?”

  “Something like that.” I drew a deep breath. It was indeed hot in here. “May I ask you about your family?”

  “Of course.”

  “You seem very…independent. You mentioned your husband. Do you have children?”

  Irene threw back her head and laughed. “That is rather direct, Paula. No, no, I’m not offended. My husband is considerably my senior. He was a widower, a man with grownup sons, when his eye fell on me. A good match, so my friends told me, and I have come to agree with them, for my own reasons. My husband’s duties take him away a great deal of the time, and that gives me space for my projects. One might say those are my children. You will have observed the women who study in my library—Jew, Christian, and Muslim together.”

  “Don’t the authorities frown on your allowing Muslim women to come here for such a purpose?”

  “Ah,” she said, “that is one reason for my ban on male visitors.” She glanced in the general direction of the garden with a rueful smile. “Apart from the troublesome few who will not take no for an answer, that is,” she added. “I wish women to feel quite safe in my house. Because this is known to be a female preserve, the husbands of my guests view it as a suitable place for their wives to go for an outing. They know there’s a hamam here, and I suspect they believe we spend the day bathing and gossiping, only in more salubrious surroundings than those of the public bathhouse. And, of course, some of the husbands don’t object to their wives’ scholarship; they sanction it provided the women do their study in private, in an all-female setting. My library is ideal for that. I do request discretion. I ask all my guests not to speak of whom they have met here.”